


Abstrudere

by celluloid



Series: wandering mind [2]
Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies), Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Angst, Bad Decisions, Character Analysis, Dark, F/M, Gen, Hallucinations, Horror, It Gets Worse Before It Gets Better, Mental Instability, Paranoia, Post-Spider-Man: Far From Home, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Psychological Horror, Psychological Trauma, Road Trips, Self-Doubt, Therapy, Trust Issues, Unreliable Narrator, self-sabotage
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-12
Updated: 2019-08-21
Packaged: 2020-06-26 22:31:07
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 9
Words: 39,292
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19777783
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/celluloid/pseuds/celluloid
Summary: “I don’t want you here,” Peter says, conviction in his tone but lacking in actual meaning.“I think you do,” Beck counters. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”(Peter's been through a lot. He's all too aware of this. But he's determined to get back to a good place.)





	1. Peter & Beck

**Author's Note:**

> Had a couple of people tell me they wanted more after Alucinari, and that, combined with my need for More Mysterio Content, made it a pretty easy choice to keep going in this little universe.
> 
> I've got an outline I'm still in the process of building. I know how this fic is going to end, but I also anticipate writing more beyond it. So. Fic series!
> 
> This picks up [immediately where Alucinari left off](https://archiveofourown.org/works/19711957).

Peter’s breathing is ragged. He stays where he is, eyes squeezed shut and refusing to open them. He feels like his ribcage is closing in, trying to puncture his internal core organs or at least close in on them tightly enough they ooze out through the bones.

Everything hurts so, so much.

He feels hands ghosting over him, like he’s about to get a conciliatory pat on the back or hug or something.

“Please don’t,” he manages to get out, his first words of the day.

The hands withdraw; Peter can feel it from the disruption of the air behind him. “Okay,” Beck says.

Peter’s entire being shakes with the next bit of air he inhales. “So you’re here now? Is that what this is?”

“If you want me to be,” Beck replies.

Beck’s voice is exactly like when they first met. There’s nothing malicious or playful or murderous or superior about it; it’s like when a friend is having a tough time and you want to console them but you aren’t sure how so you walk around them until you find the opening they accept.

It should make Peter angry. It does make him furious. But at the same time…

“I don’t want you here,” he says, conviction in his tone but lacking in actual meaning.

“I think you do,” Beck counters. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be here.”

Peter wants to argue with it but can’t. “Doesn’t matter,” he mumbles into his kneecaps. “This is just another dream anyway. At some point I’ll wake up for real and then it will matter, but right now it doesn’t.”

“Are you sure about that?” Beck asks. Peter feels him get up from the bed. He’s caught by surprise, though, when Beck gently takes his wrists in his hands - there’s no real grip, it’s actually delicate, like he’s afraid Peter will shatter - and moves them from hugging his legs tight to his body. Peter doesn’t resist, just lets it happen, like he’s a doll for Beck to play with. Since that’s probably his life now, why fight it. 

His eyes open involuntarily as Beck gently prods his head back up, finger under his chin. Peter doesn’t have a clear picture in front of him, his vision too blurred from tears and lack of proper sleep. But he swears he sees concern on the man’s face.

“You’re not really here,” Peter mumbles.

“No, I’m not,” Beck confirms. “But your mind wants me here, so here I am. Check your foot.”

Peter blinks. “What?”

“Check your foot,” Beck says again. “The one you stepped on broken glass with. Check it. See if it’s actually cut.”

Peter stares, unseeing, for a moment. Then, like he’s on autopilot, he takes his throbbing foot and moves it up so its sole is in his line of vision. He uses his free hand to wipe at his eyes, then gets a good look.

Nothing. No cuts. Not even any dirt, which should have been there if he had been running out and about. He runs the pad of his thumb on it and finds no breaks in the skin. It’s like nothing happened.

Peter looks back at Beck. “Nothing, but that doesn’t prove anything.”

Beck heaves a sigh, like he’s figuring this out alongside Peter. If this is all his own brain, then Peter figures that makes sense; that’s exactly what’s happening. “It means there are two possibilities: you never went outside like you thought you did in your first dream, you never got cut, and every time you felt that cut it was still just another dream. Or you did go outside, you did get cut, and you’re just dreaming now.”

“That’s completely unhelpful.”

“Yeah, this is gonna take a while for you to work through,” Beck says. “Think of it this way: do you feel like you’re dreaming right now?”

“No,” Peter says, “but I didn’t before, either, for all the good that meant.”

“But something happened each of those times that made it clear it wasn’t real. Your surroundings disappearing, being in a void—“

“You showing up,” Peter interjects, finding enough life again to glare at Beck. 

Beck raises an eyebrow. “Tony Stark showing up first, even though you know he’s dead.”

“Shut up,” Peter snaps. “He could still be—“

“Oh, come on, grow up,” Beck practically growls, and Peter recoils a bit: it’s the first time this Beck has shown animosity towards him. He feels a horrible twinge, like he just fucked up and he needs to rectify things immediately. Beck ignores his body language. “You were right there when he died. You were the second last person to say anything to him, think about that for a second. You’ve been staying with the person who was the third last to ever say anything to him, and who knew him longer than anyone else. You really think he’d be keeping that from you? Especially after the heart-to-hearts you’ve been having? You watched the light leave Tony Stark’s eyes, you watched his wife cry over his still body after his AI announced he was dying. He’s dead.”

“So are you,” Peter retorts. “I could say the exact same things—“

“No, you couldn’t, because you didn’t _watch_ , you just asked a piece of software you know you can no longer trust if that was the case. But that’s neither here nor there, because I’m clearly here right now, whether you like it or not.”

“I hate it.”

“Well, tough,” Beck shrugs. “I’m here because some part of you wants me here and I’m pretty sure you’re awake in the real world this time. Your move.”

Peter just curls his lip at him and shakes his head incredulously. “This is all just another trick.”

“What happened in each of your past dreams?” Beck asks.

“What?”

“What’s the one thing every dream you’ve had recently has had in common?”

Peter spreads his arms in frustration. “I don’t know!”

“You got up,” Beck says. “Not just woke up, you physically got up. You went outside in the middle of the night, or you went to go get breakfast and talked to people you had every reason to think you were talking to. And this time…”

“I’ve stayed in bed,” Peter says, looking down at the sheets pooled by his feet. He takes another look at his watch; the four has turned into a five. Time has passed, but not by a great leap or anything. “And I’ve talked to someone I know isn’t actually here.”

“That’s a pretty big departure.”

Peter shakes his head. “I don’t like it,” he says, and knows he has a valid protest this time. “If this is reality, if I actually did wake up and whatever I do next is actually me doing it, not just me in a dream, then that means I still have to deal with you. That still means something is really wrong. Maybe it’s even worse.”

“Of course something is really wrong,” Beck says, and he can’t help the bit of a smile that creeps through his expression. “I really did fuck you up.”

“Thanks,” Peter says, voice dry. “So if this is the real world then it’s going to be even more of a hell than it was before.”

“Not necessarily,” Beck says, dropping back into that role Peter first knew him from. He thinks of a conversation after Fury had yelled at him, high up, overlooking the Prague night sky. “No more days spent completely alone: this time, you have a friend alongside you.”

Peter freezes at that.

“I’m going to get up now,” he says, swinging his legs over the side of the bed. He pointedly glares at Beck. “Don’t you dare follow me.”

He doesn’t see or hear anything from Beck as he quietly shuts the door behind him. Peter pads his way over to the kitchen, careful to avoid any creaks in the floorboards. Five in the morning is a mostly reasonable time, though it’s still really early, especially for him. He gets a glass of water, thinks on it, then pours himself a bowl of cereal.

And then Peter counts the seconds, watching them correspond with the changing numbers on the clock. Sixty, a number changes. Sixty, it changes again. So time is passing normally.

And he’s alone.

* * *

An uneventful ninety minutes have passed, and though Peter has slipped up a ton of times in his counting regime, the only unrealistic thing that’s happened to him since getting out of bed was feeling Beck’s eyes on him as he left the guest room.

Everything, otherwise, has gone as normally as any person could reasonably expect. Other than the part in which he’s clearly lost his mind, Peter feels as grounded as he ever has since his summer vacation started.

He looks away from the clock as the light switches on in the kitchen, looks up and sees Rhodey entering. “Hey,” Rhodey greets him, his voice tired, but it’s the normal kind of tired, like when the brain is just booting back up, “you’re up early.”

“I don’t know what’s real and what’s not anymore,” Peter blurts out.

Rhodey stops mid-opening the fridge door. He turns back to look at Peter, framed by the light emanating from the refrigerator. Peter’s mind absently calculates how many joules he’s wasting by leaving it open. “What?”

“For all I know this is just another dream, and I’m going to tell you everything, and then I’m going to fall into a pit and a giant spider is going to wrap me up in its web and leave me there for it to eat and then I’ll wake up in my bed and go through this all over again.”

Rhodey just stares at him. It’s disconcerting. Peter lets his head fall into his hands, running his fingers through his hair in frustration. “I should start from the beginning,” he says.

“Yeah, probably,” Rhodey says, letting the fridge door close behind him. “What’s going on? Last night we were talking about getting you set up in therapy. Did something happen overnight?”

Oh god. _Oh thank god,_ Peter thinks, _a specific reference._ Not just a specific reference, but one to a very recent event. He’s been counting, nothing weird has happened, maybe he actually is awake this time. “Yeah. A lot of somethings, actually. I don’t know how to— I don’t know where to start, just, I think the main thing is I’m losing my mind.

“I kept mixing up dreams and reality last night. They all turned out to be dreams in the end. At least, I _think_ they were all dreams, but I really couldn’t say for sure. I think— I think this is real, but it might not be. Rhodey, I really can’t tell if I’m awake or dreaming right now.”

“You’re awake,” Rhodey says. Peter wants to lean into that voice, coat himself in it, slather it to his feet to the floor so he has a permanent grounded sensation. It sounds so _nice_.

“I want to believe you, but I can’t. It’s not that I don’t trust you, it’s that I don’t trust myself. I kept— Last night, I kept waking up and something messed up would happen and then I’d wake up again and again and I— I can’t tell anymore. I really can’t.” Peter speaks quickly, like he needs to get it all out now, before he wakes up in the bed again and has to go through the whole process all over from square one. 

Which doesn’t make sense, he knows, because if this is a dream then it doesn’t matter how quickly he talks, he’s still going to have to start all over when he wakes up for real.

Peter imagines he has a wild, crazed look in his eyes, only accentuated by the bags under them and his hair sticking up at all angles. It’d be cool, he could be Einstein, only Einstein knew a lot more about relativity than he does now or probably ever will. But especially now.

Rhodey takes one look at him and then immediately goes for his phone. “Screw it, I don’t care how early it is,” he says, “I’m calling Sam right now.”

Peter lets his head fall onto his folded arms on the table. Suddenly he doesn’t need to strain to hold his head up anymore, but it’s just easier to let it drop. If the drop leads to waking up again, well, at least he’s already been through the explanation part once.

He exhales. “Thank you.”


	2. Day One

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I couldn't tell you the last time I actually went to therapy. I don't even remember what my last session would've been like or why I stopped, but it's been years.
> 
> I know it's fic and expertise isn't required, but I do want to be upfront that there is a degree of bullshitting going on here and I'm trying to make it not too bad. And hoping that in-universe imperfect circumstances can help me excuse any errors, haha.
> 
> So much love to everyone following along with me so far!!

“I feel like we need to lay some cards down on the table first.”

Peter nods. “Okay. Makes sense. Shoot.”

Sam looks across at him. He’s actually the one on the couch, though he’s only taking up one seat, feet firmly planted on the ground as he leans forward, the coffee table in front of him. There aren’t actually any cards on it. _Obviously,_ Peter thinks. He’d already taken to the chair, curled up between the high armrests, when Sam had arrived, and refused to move. It makes him feel like he’s stuck in one location, which is exactly what he needs right now, half afraid the rug is going to be pulled out from under him. He glances down for a second. Maybe literally.

Not even eight in the morning. Rhodey had ducked out, though, quietly and with little fanfare. “Call me when you’re done,” he’d said to Sam, making it clear the entire space was just for the two of them.

Peter half expects Sam Wilson to start telling him off, especially with the security blanket known as Rhodey gone. He’s never done therapy before - it just seemed like an unnecessary luxury and why waste his time when he had a city to patrol, people to help who weren’t himself - and his interactions with the Falcon have been limited and while not hateful, not necessarily what he’d call friendly, either.

But Sam is serious and professional. Peter can tell just by looking at him, before his mouth actually opens and sound fills the airwaves.

He’d only caught one half of his conversation with Rhodey - the Rhodey half.

_“The kid needs help, now._

_“No, I don’t think it can wait._

_“Sam, he’s been with me for the past week. I didn’t think it was urgent then. I do think it is now.”_

There hadn’t been anything to disagree with, really; Peter is just relieved someone else is taking it seriously, like his experiences have been validated. He really, really hopes this time things are for real, because he doesn’t know where he’ll go in the next loop, but this is by far the most serious things have gotten so far.

It’s just the two of them.

“First,” Sam starts, and Peter’s eyes immediately snap back to his, “this is not what I do. I have some training, but my work has always been group therapy with war veterans. This is not a group and you are not a war veteran. I know you’ve been through some shit but you just aren’t. This will not be perfect.”

Peter nods. “I understand,” he says. _It’s not like I’ll be able to tell the difference,_ he does not say.

“Second,” Sam says, “this is temporary. Your circumstances aren’t great, but you know that. You have a small circle of people you can trust right now, and I just happen to be the most qualified among them. So here I am, and I’m happy to help. But when the time comes - and it will come - you’ll have to find a therapist actually suited to working with someone like you.”

Peter snorts at that. “What, like superheroes?”

Sam stares at him. “Like _children_.”

He doesn’t say the word like he’s admonishing Peter for his age or immaturity. He says it like a reminder: Peter has been through more than most ever will, was literally a part of the battle to save the universe - twice - and is still only sixteen. Everyone else fighting alongside him was an adult. Their biggest real life worries were like, taxes or something, not finals or getting a date.

Peter swallows, suddenly conscious of how - not physically small, but - the age difference. Talking to Ned or MJ was worlds different from talking to Mr. Stark or Rhodey. “Okay,” he says, quiet.

Sam reaches for the coffee he’d stopped for on his way in. Peter’s eyes follow its movement from table to hands to lips to table. He’s sworn off the stuff now. He hasn’t told anyone else yet, but he’s not going to drink it again. He can’t manipulate his brain chemistry like that. Not again. Not after what happened last time.

“I don’t mean to talk down to you,” Sam says, his voice softening. Peter can feel it, the edges gone, the air taking on a fuzzy texture in its place. It’s nice. He relaxes. “And I won’t be doing it. I am not going to judge you for a single thing you say; I am going to do everything in my power to help you. My ability just might not reach as far as we need it to, and I want us to be clear about that going in.”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “Yeah, I— I get it. I’ve just never done this before, is all. And I— I don’t even know if I’m actually doing it right now.”

Sam nods, like he has some background on what’s going on. “Third,” he says, “we’re going to start structured and slow. Let’s take an hour and go from there, but I don’t want to go beyond that. At the same time, it sounds like just once a week might not cut it for you.”

Peter blanks at that. Scheduled appointments hadn’t really crossed his mind. Sure, on some level he knew they’d be a thing - he wasn’t going to be in therapy twenty-four-seven or anything - but he hadn’t even considered the possibility of downtime, and that scares him a little. He needs to get better, _now_ , and he doesn’t see how that happens if he’s left to his own devices.

At the same time, Peter is conscious of the fact that Sam is his own person, has a life well beyond Peter’s nonsense, and he doesn’t want to intrude on that.

So he stays silent. Sam takes the cue. “We can figure that out later, if you want. See how this goes first.”

Peter nods, meek, and bunches his fists in the pocket of the oversized hoodie he has on. It’s a safe article of clothing, even if it swallows him. He feels like he can hide in it. Not from Sam, but from - everything. (Beck.)

“Last thing,” Sam says, and Peter snaps back to his voice, his face. “We’re focusing on the present. You have problems that are impeding your day-to-day life? That’s what we’re here to solve. Don’t think you have to give me your entire life story, unless you think it’ll help. But what we’re really concerned with is the now.”

Peter looks around, like this is supposed to be the part everything goes sideways, but nothing does and there’s nothing in his head warning him. He grasps at the fabric from inside the hoodie’s pocket. “How do I tell what actually is the now and when my brain is lying to me?”

Sam doesn’t quite follow what he’s talking about. Neither does Peter, frankly, but he finds it easy once his mouth is open to just keep running with it, and details everything: meeting Beck in Italy; how he thought he was the perfect superhero and a friend until it turned out he wasn’t; the warehouse he speeds right past the warehouse not wanting to dwell on that just what happened; winning; having Beck unexpectedly re-enter his life even after he died and force him into hiding; how much he misses his friend, his girlfriend, his aunt; staying awake for four days straight and it dawns on him he’s still afraid of the warehouse. He’d won in the end but since arriving here - a safe house, essentially - his brain keeps defaulting back to the warehouse.

“I got hit by a train,” Peter says, head snapping back up and locking eyes with Sam. He’s _voicing_ it. “I got _hit by a train_.”

“That’s intense,” Sam says. “Why do you think you’re focusing on that part? Other than the obvious - it happened right after everything at the warehouse, right?”

“Like, seconds after,” Peter says, rubbing at his eyes. “It was— I couldn’t tell what was real or not, I was being bombarded by so many things all at once, but that. I knew that was real. After what I thought was real turned out not to be, that was real.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “That’s not going to be a good grounding point, so let’s try to find a new one for you. This is really simple, but bear with me here: focus on your breathing. Just take ten deep breaths, then see how you feel.” At Peter’s _are you serious_ stare, Sam just shrugs. “Go ahead, do it.”

_You’re the one asking for help, just try it,_ Peter tells himself. His eyes slip shut without his really thinking about it, and he inhales. Exhales. At some point, he feels his shoulders slump, relaxed. His head lolls around a bit. On his ninth exhalation he finds his eyelids fluttering open, and he refocuses after the tenth.

“How do you feel?” Sam asks.

Peter furrows his brow. “Relaxed,” he says, realizing his hands are just resting on his legs now, palms flat, zero tension. “ _Really_ relaxed,” he finds himself emphasizing. It’s a completely foreign feeling, given how this past week has gone. “Why didn’t I do that before?”

“You were stressed, you were preoccupied, you simply didn’t think to do it,” Sam shrugs. “Any reason. Don’t focus on why you didn’t do it before, think about doing it now. Modify the number of breaths if you need to.”

“But what about when I don’t have time to do it?” Peter asks. “Like if I think I’m under attack, or I actually _am_ under attack, what then?”

“Let’s try a couple of different things,” Sam says. “One thing isn’t necessarily going to be a single cure-all. Try focusing on the feeling in the soles of your feet.” _There’s no throb it was never cut there’s no throb._ At Peter’s frown, Sam shrugs. “Or, knowing you, your fingertips. Whatever you’re standing on or hanging from.”

Peter looks down at his fingers, like he’s seeing them for the first time. “I don’t know how to describe this,” he says.

“You don’t need to. Just focus on it. It’s different enough that it might just bring you back to yourself.

“One other thing: what were you doing a minute ago?”

“What?”

“Tell me what you were doing one minute ago.”

Peter looks at Sam quizzically. “Uh, breathing, I guess?”

“Does that make sense?”

“Huh?”

“A minute ago you were breathing. Does that make sense to you?”

Peter nods slowly as realization sets in. “Yeah. Yeah, it does.”

“What were you doing ten minutes ago?” Sam asks.

“Uh,” Peter says. “Talking to you?”

“Are you asking me, or telling me?”

“Telling you,” Peter says. “I was talking to you.”

“And does that make sense, that you’d be doing that?”

“Yeah.” Peter can feel himself smiling now. “Yeah, it does.” As enveloped as he’d gotten in some of his dreams, as much as he’d known what was going on wasn’t real, he’d never really stopped to question it, always just gone with the flow. It had been the same case in Germany. “But I still don’t know if any of that will actually help when the time comes…”

“Hey,” Sam says. “You can’t think like that. You don’t know. What good does doubting yourself now do you? You have three new techniques that might help you out the next time you find yourself unsure of things. Focus on that. We’re not fixing everything in one day here. We’re going to find out what works and there’s going to be some trial and error involved in that. This is just the start.”

“Okay,” Peter exhales. He finds he’s uncurled himself over the course of talking with Sam. His head feels a little clearer, his being lighter. “It’s just, things got so nuts—“

Sam holds up a hand. “I get that. But this is day one.” Day One. For real Day One this time. “It’s going to take time. So for now: no excuses, just an open mind. Repeat that back to me.”

Peter does, and Sam makes him say it another two times before he’s satisfied. “Good,” he says. “We should think about wrapping it up here for the day.”

“Already?” Peter asks, voice louder than he intended. He coughs. “I mean, it’s only been—“

“Almost an hour,” Sam says. “We covered a lot of ground today, and that’s good. Don’t want to do too much too fast, though.”

“But it’s only nine,” Peter nearly whines. He doesn’t want to whine or sound cranky or ungrateful, it’s just… “What am I supposed to do with the rest of the day? How do I know I’ll be okay?”

“You’ll do whatever you feel like,” Sam says. “It’s your summer vacation, right? Have fun. Play video games with your friend, call your aunt. Be a kid, albeit a kid in an unusual and inconvenient situation. When do you want to have a second session?”

Peter stares down at his hands, sheepish. “Is tomorrow too soon…?”

“Yes,” Sam says, and it makes Peter think of the tone he first heard from him, in an airport in Germany. It softens as Peter’s hands grip at his hoodie. “The day after. Give you some time to maybe let things sink in, see how they’re going. Would that work?”

Peter doesn’t like it, but then again, he’s new to all of this and thinks there’s a real chance he’s being overly demanding. “Sure,” he says, looking back up at Sam, eye contact and everything. 

He should say something. He could get him to stay. Explain that he can’t play video games with Ned or call his aunt because he doesn’t know who might be listening in on another end, there’s no security—

He doesn’t say anything. He’ll figure out something. _One thing at a time, Parker._

Sam stands up, then, and Peter does the same. “A couple of quick things before I take off,” he says, and Peter wonders if that was supposed to be a pun. Because it definitely was one, he just doesn’t know if Sam Wilson is the kind of person who makes those. “Keep your body healthy. That means eat right - preferably no junk food - and get a proper amount of sleep each night. Eight to ten hours. Go for nine. You stuck on something to do before bedtime - and try to keep that routine - maybe learn how to cook. Exercise, however much you can in here, without wearing yourself out. A healthy body doesn’t always guarantee a healthy mind, but it sure as shit doesn’t hurt.”

Peter nods with increasing enthusiasm as Sam tells him what to do. “Yeah, okay, that’s good, I can do that.” He actually can. Maybe it won’t come naturally to him, not right away, but they’re all _possible_ , and that’s what Peter wants to cling to. Will cling to. Like there’s a light at the end of a tunnel—

_that’s a train metaphor_

— and he just needs to keep in mind how Sam stressed things won’t be fixed in a day.

But as he bids Sam farewell at the door, he finds himself feeling really, really good. Like he’s walking on air. Like there still is a future for him, after all; Beck’s memory won’t have ownership over him.

* * *

“You didn’t mention me once.”

Peter looks up from his book - something on particle physics he’d found when perusing Rhodey’s bookshelves. It had seemed out of place. It turned out to be something of Mr. Stark’s left behind here, or maybe Rhodey took it for himself as a keepsake, Mr. Stark’s writing notable on the first few pages - and sees Beck sitting on the couch, right where Sam had been before. He’s curled back up in his chair. A couple of hours have passed, but the layout is identical.

Peter closes his eyes and takes a breath. “You aren’t actually here.” He opens his eyes and Beck is still there, cocking his head at Peter, looking entirely innocent.

No - not just innocent, but a friend. That kind of encouraging presence when Fury had hijacked his vacation. The one that says _I’m on your side_ with such sincerity that it’s easy to fall for, easy to cling to the exact kind of person he’d needed in his life at that moment.

Only Beck was never that kind of person, and he’s not here.

Beck ignores the objection. “I mean, really, your first therapy session and you didn’t even mention me? I’m not sure whether to be hurt or grateful.”

Peter glares. “A minute ago I was alone in this room, reading a book. Nobody came in. Nobody else is here. Nothing has changed in the past minute.”

Beck sighs. “Congratulations, you’re trying your new techniques out. Pretty sure this is the real world for you, this time. But for you, I’m now a part of it - whether I’m actually here or not.”

“You’re not.”

“Which is why you’re arguing with me.”

Peter snaps the book shut. Shit, he’ll find his place again later. He stares, lips curled back slightly, as much of a snarl his young being can muster on his face, and doesn’t say another word.

Beck raises his hands in mock defeat. “Okay, so you’re mad at me.”

“Yes.”

Beck smiles as Peter screws his mouth shut, frustrated at his slip up. “Why? Shouldn’t you be happy right now? You seem to have a pretty solid grip on what’s real and what’s not, don’t you? Wasn’t that the issue?”

Lips a thin line as he keeps them firmly closed, Peter just shakes his head, reaches for his book again, and tries to find where he left off. He’s staring only at the words on the pages when suddenly the book is ripped from his hands and thrown across the room. Beck’s face is suddenly right up close against his own, his eyes so intently focused on Peter’s he actually finds himself shrinking back a little under their ferocity.

“Look at me when I’m talking to you,” Beck snaps, and it’s all Peter can really do but to give a small nod.

Did he just throw his book across the room for no reason himself?

“It’s not no reason,” Beck says, backing off slightly now that he knows he has Peter’s attention. “Part of you wants to go over something with you, clearly. It’ll be in your best interest to not ignore it.” He paces, and even though he’s wearing civilian clothing - really similar to what Peter’s wearing, actually, just better-fitting - Peter can swear he sees the cape swirling behind him.

“Then why does it look like _you_?” Peter asks back, and flinches at how meek his voice comes out. He’s mad. He has every right to be mad. He shouldn’t sound this weak.

Beck stands over him, appraising him. Peter looks up, feeling small. “I made an impression on you. It’s not my problem if you can’t handle the person who has clearly become the strongest figure in your life. Or would you prefer an armoured corpse?”

Peter actually physically recoils at that, sending himself pressed up against the chair’s back. “You dick.”

“You didn’t mention me,” Beck goes back to his original, unaddressed point, completely ignoring any animosity from Peter’s end. “You can address all your recent trauma but not the one thing happening to you right now?”

“Getting a grip on what’s real and what’s not is more important,” Peter says. He’s not sure he believes himself.

Beck snorts at that. “I already helped you there this morning. You know what’s real. You’re dancing around the actual issues.”

“Which are?”

“You’re pretty good at coming up with excuses for not talking to your friends and family, aren’t you? You keep imagining your aunt being sweet and missing you, your girlfriend wanting to come spend time with you, you hanging out with your best friend like you’ve been doing all your life. But now that you’re in a tough spot you what, abandon them? You didn’t bring them up in therapy and you didn’t bring me up, you focused on a problem you already solved. What’s the end goal here?”

“To go back home,” Peter says, his fingernails digging into the palms of his hands.

“To what? A world that hates you and people you’re too scared to turn to at your most desperate?” There isn’t even any aggression in Beck’s voice, that having faded once he got Peter’s attention; he’s simply standing over him, arms crossed, voice matter of fact.

“I don’t want them to get hurt.”

“How do you think they feel right now?”

“I don’t want them to get _killed_ ,” Peter says, and there it is. He can sit up straighter at that, leer forward at that, staring at the man who threatened to do just that.

Beck shrugs. “That’s the risk for anyone close to you. You think their lives can go back to normal after this? You think you can just go back home, go back to high school, walk the halls and take your classes and everything’s going to be the same? Your life is over.”

Before Peter even recognizes what he’s doing he’s up, on his feet, fist swinging through the air and landing right on Beck’s cheek, snapping his face sideways and leaving an imprint at the impact point. Peter’s breathing heavily, he realizes. He clenches his fist tighter, ready to swing again at the next words to come out of Beck’s mouth.

Without turning his head back, Beck looks back at Peter, eye widening as it focuses on him. It’s so wide. The blue is focused so solely on him. Peter feels his footing falter slightly. “Careful,” Beck says, “you wouldn’t want to go accidentally punching any holes in the walls here.”

Peter staggers back, grabbing his fist with his other hand, like that’s his only means of stopping himself from trying to fight the thin air in the apartment. Maybe it actually is. He turns it over, cradles it, even though it didn’t actually hit anything and isn’t sore. He stares up at Beck, swears he can feel his eyes red-rimmed, and asks, “Then how do I get rid of you?”

Beck turns properly back to face him and shrugs. His cheek remains red. “Remember your last dream, before you woke up crying in bed this morning and I was the only one there to soothe you?”

_That isn’t how it actually was_. “Yeah,” Peter says. “That was the last dream?”

“I don’t know where else your mind is going to take you,” Beck says. “But remember what I said to you then?”

Peter shakes his head.

“I’m the only one who can help you.”

Peter thinks on it for a second, then shakes his head again. “That’s a lie,” he says. “That’s not— I _know_ that’s not true. I’m getting help right now and it’s not from you—“

“And just like everyone else will desert you - something else we talked about - so will that extra help. He doesn’t even like you, remember? You piss him off. You’re a talkative brat with no sense of gravity in the real world and he’s going to give up on you, too. The sooner you accept this—“

“— The better off everyone else will be,” Peter cuts him off, remembering the tail end of his last dream. He stares forward, unseeing, arms hanging limply as his sides. Then he shakes his head, again. “No, that’s not how these things work.”

“You’re sixteen. How would you even know?”

“I _know_ ,” Peter snaps. “I know my friends and family and I know everything you’ve told me is a lie because I know they aren’t like you say at all. Ned is my guy in the chair, MJ is smart and resourceful and stubborn and she won’t let me go just like that, and my aunt and I have been through everything together. _Everything._ I _know_.”

Beck just smiles at him, but it’s a sad, small one. The kind someone older and wiser gives a kid they know is about to make one of the worst mistakes of their life and there isn’t anything he can do to stop him. The kind of smile you give someone you know you’re seeing for the last time before something horrible happens, something that leaves them permanently scarred or dead.

And Peter can’t help but think what mental scars would look like if they were a physical manifestation.

A glowing, armoured hand reaching for him, repulsor beam whirring, a black hole in a skull to stare back into as it descends on him.

“Sure you do, kid,” Beck says, soft and conciliatory. The Beck that played with a wedding band, lost his family in the multiverse.

_That was just a story,_ Peter thinks.

When was the last time he spoke to anyone from his life - Peter Parker’s life, not Spider-Man’s? He can’t remember. He’d left MJ in the middle of New York, couldn’t tell Ned if he was even okay, had talked to Aunt May for maybe like five minutes and—

_Maybe mine is reality._

But he has no way to confirm that.

Peter spares one more glance at Beck before going to retrieve Mr. Stark’s book and retreat to the guest room. He can’t bring himself to open it back up.


	3. A Crucial Detail

The words stay lodged in Peter’s throat. If they were something physical, he’s sure he’d choke on them. But they aren’t, so he doesn’t - though it feels like he should.

They won’t come out. Peter can’t think of how to get them out. Maybe he should get a glass of water.

He stays seated.

“I had some weird dreams the past couple of nights,” Peter says instead.

“Yeah?” Sam asks. “Just to check, but are you getting enough sleep?”

“I think so,” Peter nods. “I’m going to bed at midnight and getting up at like, eight or nine. Both days so far. I feel a lot better than—“ _he knows where Rhodey keeps his guns but not his bullets_ “— when I was forcing myself to stay awake. And the dreams aren’t that bad, I don’t think.”

“That’s good. Keep it up,” Sam says, and smiles. Peter smiles back. “Do you want to talk about the dreams?” he follows up.

“Yeah, I think so,” Peter says. “Uh, I’m just trying to— Okay. Yeah. So the first one? The night after we first talked? I was in Paris, it was for my class trip. We were supposed to go there in the real world but never did because of, the whole, thing. And I was at the top of the Eiffel Tower with this girl I have a crush on, MJ. She’s actually my girlfriend now but in the dream she wasn’t, not yet.

“I had this plan - before the trip, before everything happened, I mean - that I wanted to tell her how I felt up there. It would have been romantic, right?” Peter immediately buries his head in his hands. “Oh god now that I’m saying it out loud again I can’t believe I thought that was going to work…”

“Hey,” Sam says, and when Peter looks back up, he finds him smiling. “I’ve definitely seen worse attempts at romance over the years. _Way_ worse. And if she’s your girlfriend now then she probably would have said yes, even up there, because she clearly cares about you.”

Peter thinks he can feel his blush increasing. He also feels a pinch of guilt because _she clearly cares about you_ and he hasn’t talked to her in over a week and he knows she knows why but still. 

“But anyway,” Peter starts up again, trying to put as much space between talking about real feelings and his current moment as possible, “in the dream, we did go to the Eiffel Tower. And it felt so real, because that’s what we were supposed to be doing anyway, right? That’s what I thought we were going to be doing for weeks, and it fell apart so much quicker than that. But we were there, just the two of us, overlooking the city, and I was about to say something and the tower shook.

“A bomb? Or something had gone off, I don’t know what. But there was some kind of attack, and she lost her footing and fell over the edge. And I didn’t even think about it, I jumped after her and grabbed her and I shot a web to grab the tower and we just kind of hung there for a bit. And she looked up at me, but I can’t remember what the expression on her face was in the dream. In real life she knows who I am but in the dream, I don’t remember.

“But then the tower shook again so I hugged her tight to me and we made it down to the ground as fast as possible, and then I went around the base to like, web it in place, I guess? To save it from falling over and killing everyone underneath. And it worked, and nobody got hurt and it stood standing.

“I didn’t have a mask on then though, so everyone saw me, was taking videos, and it came out pretty quick that this was the work of Spider-Man and everyone knew my face but… it didn’t matter. Because I’d just saved someone, I saved the tower, and I guess in my dream everything was forgotten that it had been attacked or whatever and the entire story was just, me. But everyone was so nice about it.”

Peter interlocks his fingers and stares down at them, fiddling. “So when I woke up and I wasn’t in my own room I was confused. Like why wouldn’t I be at home? Everything went great. I was a hero, publicly, like Mr. Star— like you. And instead I was in some place I didn’t recognize and it didn’t make sense.”

“So what did you do?” Sam asks.

Peter doesn’t look back up. “I panicked a bit, kind of. Like I thought I had been kidnapped or something. But then I remembered, well, just breathe. If I’d been kidnapped then I’d need to calm down anyway, and I remembered how I’d felt after just taking all those deep breaths the first time. So I did that, and I stopped panicking, and I tried to piece together my last steps. When did I get back from Paris? I didn’t, because I’d never been there. And then I remembered what had actually happened…”

Peter stops, not really willing to continue. He grabs at his own hands tighter, his knuckles whitening. He’s not a public hero like Mr. Stark was, still is, his murals everywhere he turns; he’s a public menace. _Your life is over,_ Beck had told him, and he was right.

“Hey,” Sam says. Peter looks back up, vision blurred, and realizes he’s started to cry again. “Don’t worry about that. At all. I’m serious. We’re working on it. I don’t mean just the two of us in here, I mean all of the Avengers whose voices will make an impact. It’s going to take time, most things do, but none of us have forgotten about you. Don’t stress the things that are out of your control. How you feel right now is - so let’s focus on that, and appreciate that. You woke up from a confusing dream and you were still able to figure out what was real and what wasn’t. That’s a big win, right?”

Peter flashes back to the loop and sheer confusion he’d been trapped in earlier, an exhausted and traumatized mind working itself into fits with no end in sight. He’d found the end to that, though. He’s been in a significantly more relaxed state since he started talking to Sam, and this is only his second session.

“I guess,” Peter frowns. “I mean, yeah, it is a lot better. I— I don’t want to go to that place again, where I was before, that made Rhodey call you really early in the morning. But there’s still so much—“

“You had a win,” Sam says again. “Don’t diminish that just because you know there are more battles up ahead. I want you to say that, for yourself: ‘I had a win.’”

“I had a win,” Peter says, voice lifeless. But then he remembers the sheer terror of not knowing what was what and he nods to himself, forcefully, a reaffirmation. “I had a win,” he says again without prompting, more conviction in his voice, and feels a rush of pride as Sam smiles at him. 

“More of that,” Sam says, and Peter nods. “Did you want to talk about your second dream, too?”

Peter stills a bit at that. “It was really similar to the first one. We were in Paris, Eiffel Tower, all that,” he says.

“Except that time I couldn’t catch MJ. She died. Everyone thought I killed her. My face was everywhere and I was a murderer… and then I woke up.

“I was way more panicked that time. Like, I was crying and everything, I thought I’d just lost her, my other friends would never look at me again, my aunt would disown me. I was completely freaking out. And then I thought, if only we’d never gone to stupid Paris, of course this would happen here after everything that happened to us in Italy and Prague. And then I tried to remember, wait, what had happened in Paris? And then I remembered I’d never been to Paris. And she’d been sad about not getting to go to the Eiffel Tower. So we’d never been there. So it wasn’t real. It was a dream. So I just breathed again… and it was fine.”

Sam gives him a skeptical look, and Peter knows it’s written on his face that it was very much not fine. “Sorry,” he says with a shaky laugh, running a hand through his hair, “that was like, just a couple of hours ago, I’m still maybe a little raw but I know it wasn’t real so—“

“Don’t apologize,” Sam says. Peter looks back up at him. “I’ve been there before. With those kinds of dreams, that is. They can be tough, even when you’re used to them. You aren’t. Just focus on the win. Two wins, really: you knew it wasn’t real and you know she’s still waiting for you back in New York.”

Peter nods. “Yeah,” he says, his voice soft, like he’s still just coming to terms with what it means to be able to tell the difference between reality and not all over again. It’s powerful. He almost feels overwhelmed by it. “Yeah, this is so much better than before.”

* * *

What Peter doesn’t tell Sam: After the first dream, when everything had come crashing down around him, that he wasn’t a hero to the public but a villain, Beck had been there, off to the side, sitting spun around in the chair at the desk in the room.

It was after he’d opened his eyes after he’d finished his breathing exercise. Beck had been there, looking at him contemplatively, and it had given Peter the jumpstart he’d needed to retrace his steps in the real world: he wasn’t a hero because Mysterio was a hero and he’d killed Mysterio and Mysterio had filmed it and told the world. _Your life is over._

Beck had smiled at him, then, soft and apologetic as the words ran through Peter’s mind. Peter had stared back, not knowing how to feel, before he’d thrown the covers over his head and turned over on his side to face the wall - back to Beck - and go back to sleep.

What Peter doesn’t tell Sam: After the second dream, when he’d woken up and a scream had died in his throat at MJ’s loss, Beck had been there, instantly, holding him. And Peter had leaned into it, sobbing into his arms, chest heaving as he’d hyperventilated and doing everything in his power to stay quiet as he gasped for air like he was drowning.

“I killed her,” he’d gasped out into stale air. “She’s dead and it’s my fault and I’m a monster and her life is over and my life is over—“ and he’d run out of breath and choked on his sobs and buried his head further into Beck’s chest and gripped at his shirt and cried.

“Shh,” Beck had soothed, rubbing clockwise circles on Peter’s back as he’d held him. “No you didn’t,” he’d said, voice soft and friendly and so rawly _there for him_. “It was just a dream. You know it was just a dream because I’m here now, and I’m only here when it’s real. You never went to Paris. I never attacked Paris. MJ is fine. Just breathe, it’ll come back to you. Just breathe.”

And Peter had. He was still crying but he’d stopped trying to inhale the air in desperate gulps and he didn’t feel a need to yell and wail in grief anymore. He’d taken deep breaths and fallen back asleep just as he felt peace come over him again, sitting upright and slowly falling forward with no body actually there to help prop him up, the warmth from the non-existent embrace fading.

When his alarm had woken him back up at a reasonable time - nine hours of sleep, maybe not solid hours but definitely nine of them, which was still its own win - Peter had opened his eyes, sore from crying, and found Beck sitting at the foot of his bed, watching over him. Peter had scrambled backwards instantly, smacking the back of his head against the wall in his attempt to get some distance between them and get back in an upright position.

Beck had laughed at that a little, but it was the kind of laugh Ned would have had for him at doing something stupid. “Hey,” he’d said, everything about him radiating those first feelings of friendship, of meeting someone else to look up to. “You feeling better?”

Peter had rubbed at the back of his head and blinked and tried to rub the sleep out of his eyes, and then he’d said, “Yeah.”

* * *

“I can tell,” Sam says, and Peter turns his attention back to him, a little in shock. Sam just huffs lightly and gives him that small smile Peter is coming to associate with a kind of deserved smugness, but it’s all about Peter’s own personal successes so he can’t argue it (not that he’d want to). “You’re sitting up straighter,” he elaborates. “You seem much more sure of yourself than you did even two days ago. You aren’t trying to hide into yourself and you aren’t as jittery. You look well-rested. You notice that, right?”

Peter smiles at that. “I didn’t know it’d be obvious just by looking at me.”

“It is,” Sam says. “You may feel like you still have a lot more to do, but don’t discount how far you’ve come already.”

Peter sits up a little straighter at that. He doesn’t have his feet on the ground - not like Sam does - but instead of his knees folded up into his chest they’re resting on the seat’s base, his legs folded neatly underneath him. His back will thank him for the increasingly proper posture later. 

“I want to go further,” he says.

“Great,” Sam responds. “What do you want to focus on now?”

Peter recalls how he’s spent the past two days without Sam there. Day one, too unnerved to go back to reading Mr. Stark’s book, he’d come back out from his room and eyed Rhodey’s landline warily before ultimately deciding not to touch it. Alone - but looking over his shoulder a little too often for comfort, though it felt like something he’d needed to do - he’d gone through the rest of Rhodey’s bookshelf. Finding he wasn’t in the mood for reading at all, he’d booted Netflix back up and watched nature documentaries, occasionally stealing glances outside at a world he wasn’t comfortable venturing back into.

When Rhodey had returned home Peter had asked if he had any cookbooks. That Sam had told him to try learning to cook if he was stuck on something to do, and at least it would be productive. That he could make them dinner tonight. Or tomorrow night.

That was what had forced him to get up at an appropriate time after his first dream, not lie in bed until late in the afternoon as he’d been tempted to - _not healthy!_ he’d reminded himself - and Peter had spent most of his second day cooking. He didn’t look over his shoulder once, didn’t feel a presence looming over him once, and the end verdict was that what he’d made had been edible.

But still, while waiting for water to boil, the oven to do its thing, he’d stolen glances at the landline. Chopping vegetables, glance. Seasoning meat, glance. Trying to keep his mind clear and happy while the timer counted down behind him, doing an apartment-appropriate workout, glance.

So Peter says, “I’m afraid to call my aunt.”

He shivers at the words, like he just said the wrong thing. But the other words are still lodged in his throat, and he needed to say something, he _does_ want to go further, and he misses Aunt May so much.

“Why’s that?” Sam asks.

Peter laughs nervously. “Oh god, so many reasons,” he says, and then falls silent.

Sam gives him a moment, then says, “Pick one, and let’s start with it.”

Peter starts, the thoughts swirling around in his head. He reaches in and finds the most practical application, the one that’s frustrating him the most, that he just can’t rid himself of even though he’s constantly questioning it.

“I don’t know who’s listening in,” Peter says.

“What do you mean?” Sam asks.

“Think about it,” Peter says, leaning forward. He feels his words picking up steam; he’s found an argument he can tackle full force. However Sam helps him out of this one, it’s going to be amazing, because he wants to get out of this inexplicable feedback loop but it makes too much damn sense to not be in it. “I’m a wanted fugitive. People are looking for me. They have to know where I am, right? I’ve had my phone turned off since Rhodey came and got me, I don’t know who’s tracking that, can they even track a phone that’s been turned off? MJ would know but I can’t talk to her.

“And also, I’m living with War Machine. An _Avenger_. An Avenger who works for the military! So I can’t use my own phone but can I use his? He’s high profile, they have to be listening in, right? And if they hear my voice they’ll know I’m here, and they’ll come and get me, and that’ll be it, I’ll go to prison and they’ll never let me talk to anybody again. I can’t risk it.”

“Okay, let’s try to break this down,” Sam says. “First question, you keep saying ‘they.’ Who are ‘they?’”

Peter knows how to answer this: he needs to say, _That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering every time I’ve thought about this! I have no idea who ‘they’ are, but they keep coming up in my head! How do I stop that?_

Instead, Peter lashes out, “ _Them._ You know. They— they listen in, on everybody of interest, and they— they—“ He’s fumbling the words, he knows it. The concept is right there on the tip of his tongue but he can’t figure out how to say it. If he could just figure that out…

“Okay,” Sam says, slowing Peter’s roll. With a certain degree of embarrassment he realizes he was literally grasping at the air, like he could pluck the words from it. “This is something else to watch out for. When you’re asked a question and you find you can’t actually answer it, it can be a sign things aren’t what they seem. Learning to recognize that will be helpful, so let’s start with this.”

“What do you mean,” Peter asks, one hand digging into the chair’s armrest, the other the nape of his neck in frustration. “I can answer it, I just can’t think of the words right now, but I know how to answer—“

“No, you don’t,” Sam cuts him off. “That’s okay. We’re going to piece this together. You mentioned Rhodey being an Avenger. Who oversees the Avengers?”

“The United Nations,” Peter says, giving Sam a _duh_ expression rather than saying it out loud. They’d talked about it in social studies class. After he’d gotten back from Germany. It had been a really, really weird class for him. He brings his arm down from the back of his head.

“Right, you had that right away,” Sam says. “Now, who would ‘they’ be working for?”

Peter opens his mouth, then shuts it. He bites down on his tongue lightly in thought, then finally answers, “I don’t know.”

“Is it possible that ‘they’ aren’t real?” Sam asks.

“But—“

“All I’m asking is if it’s _possible_ ,” Sam emphasizes.

After a moment, Peter nods slowly. “Yeah, I guess. I actually— I was trying to figure out who _they_ were, but every time, something else distracted me, I had so many other things to do and— And those were all in dreams, none of that was real…” His voice trails off as he finishes the sentence, and he looks up at Sam, bewildered. “Does this mean it’s safe to call my aunt? That nobody is listening in?”

“I think you should,” Sam says. “It’ll do you a lot of good to talk to someone who loves you and cares about you, I’m sure of it. And she would probably love to talk to you, too. But if you’re still not certain, you can ask Rhodey first. Do you trust him?”

Peter stares at the wall behind Sam at the word “trust”. He thinks about Mr. Stark trusting him with EDITH, leaving the glasses specifically for him. That Mr. Stark trusted _him_. And Rhodey was Mr. Stark’s best friend, he’d trusted him with one of his suits - one of just two people in the world other than him to have their own personal Iron Man suit built by Tony Stark.

And Happy had trusted Rhodey to come get him and save him. And Rhodey had trusted him not to shoot him in the face. And he’d— he hadn’t broken that, but he hadn’t not broken it, either, he’d pulled a trigger but nothing had happened, and—

_People trust me and I don’t trust them back,_ Peter thinks with a sinking realization. _I don’t deserve—_

“Hey, Peter,” Sam says, and Peter’s eyes snap back to Sam’s. “You still with me?”

Peter blinks rapidly a couple of times. “Yeah,” he says. “Yeah, I just— the word ‘trust’ - that’s a big word.”

“Do you want to talk about it?” Sam asks.

Peter furrows his brow in response. “I’m not sure,” he says. “I— I do trust Rhodey. Mr. Stark trusted me and he trusted Rhodey and Rhodey trusts me, I feel like it’s the least I can do. And I’ve been here, what, a week and a half? And all Rhodey has done is help me… Yeah, I trust Rhodey.

“I trust you, too,” he quickly throws in. “I don’t want to— I’m not forgetting what you’re doing for me, or anything. I don’t want you to think that I might…”

Sam once again gives Peter a moment to fall quiet, and then he nods. “I appreciate that,” he says. Peter feels a little better. He also feels something else, a chill descend on the air, but Sam doesn’t react to the sudden cold and he’s not sure if it’s just because he doesn’t care or if it’s not actually there. He doesn’t know what the temperature dropping could even mean. “I’m not worried about it, either. I know you mean well. There’s a reason so many people are trying to help you: you’re a good kid. We all know this. It’s okay to have more faith in yourself. You’re trusting a lot of people; those people trust you back, right?”

Peter nods. “Right,” he says.

The words are still lodged in his throat, but the temperature goes back up slightly. He looks behind him for a moment, like maybe it was a weather event or some clouds that were blocking the sunlight have gone away again, but nothing.

He turns back around to see Sam watching him, but he doesn’t ask. Instead, he returns to the prior subject: “So, what’s your game plan with the phone?”

“I’m not going to use mine,” Peter says. “I don’t— I think I actually do have something to worry about there. But I’m going to ask Rhodey when he comes home tonight if it’s safe to call my aunt. And if it is, I’m going to…” And he stops again.

“What’s wrong?” Sam asks at Peter’s falling silent. Peter realizes he’d started staring at the landline beside him again. He snaps his attention back to Sam.

“I tried to call my aunt before,” Peter says. “In one of the dreams. I don’t— What if I try again, and it’s a dream, if every time I pick up the phone it’s a dream and I can just never talk to her again? What do I do then?”

“It’ll be fine,” Sam says. “You’ll talk to her. Remember our grounding exercises from the first session? Remember how you woke up from your dreams the past two nights and figured out they were just dreams? You’ll be okay if you do this.”

The temperature rises slightly as Peter listens to Sam. It’s not hot, though - it’s more like a warm embrace, a perfectly pleasant atmosphere he wants to lean into. It’s creating a sense of deja vu in him, but he can’t quite place it.

And then he feels a presence behind him. He doesn’t need to turn around to know who it is. He can feel the air displacing itself behind him, to his side, as it moves around, Beck entering his field of vision as he uses an arm to hoist himself over the back of the couch and sit down right beside Sam, mimicking his exact position, two sets of eyes on Peter.

“Remember that there are people who care about you,” Sam says and Beck mouths.

“And it’ll be good for you to talk to them,” only Sam says. “So you’re going to ask Rhodey if it’s safe to use his phone, and if it is, then you’re going to…”

“I’m going to call my aunt,” Peter says, eyes darting from Beck’s to Sam’s in a second. Beck is watching him, curious. “And I’m going to tell her how much I love her, and we’re just going to talk.

“And maybe I’ll call Ned and MJ, too, if I have time,” Peter adds, unprompted. He nods to himself. Beck frowns slightly. He stops nodding.

“That’ll be great,” Sam says, and Peter can tell he really means it. He’s invested in Peter talking to his friends and family again, because he knows it’ll help Peter. Peter wants to thank him again for everything he’s doing but he wonders, in the back of his mind, if that’ll just get annoying if he keeps doing it.

“Our time’s just about up,” Sam says. “Is there anything else you wanted to talk about, or should we pick up again the day after tomorrow?”

Peter’s mouth drops open a fraction to answer, Beck out of focus as he looks at Sam, when the source of the deja vu hits him: the atmosphere is identical to what he’d felt when Beck had calmed him down earlier in the morning, comforting and consoling him as he’d held him after he’d woken up crying, before he’d drifted back off to a relaxed, dreamless sleep.

Peter also thinks about what he’d said: _I’m here now, and I’m only here when it’s real_. If he calls Aunt May and Beck is with him when he does then he knows he’ll really be talking to her…

Peter doesn’t think he can go through another fake conversation with his aunt. Not again. He’d felt so relieved talking to her, that it had all been for naught—

Peter blinks in Beck’s direction, then back to Sam, and says with a completely clear throat, “No, I think I’m good for now.”


	4. Tether Pt. 1

Second session over, Peter closes the door to Rhodey’s place behind Sam as he leaves. He’ll be back in forty-seven hours. In forty-seven hours, Peter will have talked to his aunt again, at bare minimum. He’s looking forward to it.

Peter leans back against the door and takes ten deep breaths. Twenty. Thirty. Certain he’s alone again, he opens his eyes and glares at Beck, who’s leaning against the wall before the entrance hallway turns into the living room.

“What the hell was that!” Peter explodes, gesturing wildly.

Beck looks up at him, bewildered. “What the hell was what?”

Peter’s right hand jerks, like he can pull the words out of the air again. “What the hell was— You! You’re here and I get that, but it’s only when it’s just the two of us! Since when do you show up when I’m talking to someone else! Someone real! What the hell!”

“Lower your voice,” Beck says, eyebrows raised. Peter snaps his mouth shut but his glare doesn’t lessen. “Is it a problem if I’m here more often?”

“It is if I start talking to you when other people are here,” Peter hisses, stalking down the hallway and to the kitchen. He is going to find the cookbook again. He is going to make lunch. He is going to do something productive.

Beck follows him. “But you didn’t,” he says, leaning against the counter, watching Peter drop the book on the island. “A couple of glances for a couple of seconds. That was all you did. You handled yourself great.”

“Yeah, until I don’t,” Peter mutters, flipping through the cookbook’s pages, not even registering what’s on them.

“You won’t mess up,” Beck says. “And besides, you want me around for when you call your aunt, right? So your brain doesn’t play any little tricks on you again?”

Peter looks up again at that. “Shut up,” he says. And then, in a softer tone, “It’s different on the phone. It’s not like when it’s in person.”

“Because you don’t know when you’ll be able to actually see your aunt in person again,” Beck says. It’s melancholic. Peter almost wonders if he himself said it, not Beck; it’s exactly what he’s feeling. His heart hurts. The words are gripping at it.

“Yeah,” Peter says quietly, giving up any pretence and moving to sit down on the kitchen floor, head resting against the cupboards.

Beck moves to join him on the floor. He doesn’t say anything, just watches Peter, waiting for him to speak.

Peter doesn’t feel unnerved by the silence. He’s not compelled to speak just to fill the air. Of his own volition, he looks across at Beck and asks in a small voice, “But you’ll be there, right? So I know it’s real?”

“Of course,” Beck says, and Peter believes him.

* * *

“This is gonna sound dumb,” Peter says, “but is your phone, like… safe to use?”

Rhodey looks across the table at him. “It’s not dumb,” he says, “but I don’t follow.”

Peter stares down at his bowl. He made chili. He twirls his spoon against the bottom. “I have this… I don’t know. I’m a little paranoid. I talked about it with Sam today. That if I use any technology, like a phone, that _they_ might be listening in.”

“Who’s ‘they?’”

Peter smiles ruefully, shutting his eyes. “I don’t know. I tried to explain it to Sam but I couldn’t. He said that was a sign it wasn’t real, but I just… I want to know, you know? You’re high profile and stuff… are your phones secure?”

“Oh,” Rhodey says. Peter cracks his eyes open just slightly, embarrassed, to see understanding dawn on Rhodey’s face. “Yeah. Yeah, nobody listens in on me. Tony would actually check on that sometimes for me. He didn’t have to, but,” and Rhodey shrugs, “sometimes he got stressed about that sort of thing, too. Not like your situation, but I follow. Why?”

Peter stares back down at his food. “I don’t wanna use my own phone,” he says.

“That makes sense,” Rhodey says.

A thought crosses Peter’s mind: he’s a fugitive and apparently two Avengers know where he is and that’s it. The sheer risk they must be taking, just to make sure he’s safe… Peter pushes that thought aside as Rhodey starts talking again. _Remember there are people that care about you._ That’s why he’s here and he doesn’t need to feel guilty about it.

“You can use mine, though. Remember I used it to call you once before? It’s fine.”

Peter blinks. “I forgot about that.” He searches his memory, and finds a couple of instances - Rhodey was going to be home late, Rhodey was telling him Sam was ready to see him - but Rhodey only said once. So one of those probably wasn’t real. He just can’t remember which one.

He can’t see or feel Beck anywhere around right now and he can’t remember which instance was the real one. Just that he’d never talked to Aunt May on it before, even though he thought he had. That one was fake. His own mind. Okay.

“A lot more was going on then,” Rhodey says, cool and even without any mention of _and you tried to blow my head off_. Peter bites his lower lip. “What do you need the phone for?”

Peter looks back up, slowly gathering his thoughts. He takes a deep breath. “I wanna talk to my aunt,” he says. “I thought I did before but I think that was— before Sam.” _Before Sam_ is a quick enough code phrase to explain his mental state from just a couple of days ago. It makes him feel a little less awful, at least. “But I don’t think I actually did since you picked me up and brought me here and I just…” and he bites at his lip again.

“You miss her,” Rhodey says. Peter nods, staring down at the table. “Oh god, I should’ve picked up on this sooner,” he continues, and Peter looks back up. “You’re sixteen and you live with her and you love her. Of course you miss her. Have you really not talked to her this entire time? I’m so sorry.”

Peter’s eyes widen and he starts shaking his head. “No, don’t apologize!” he insists. “You’ve done so much for me, you’ve practically saved my life, I— I can’t— I don’t know, it’s not your fault, I’m just stupid and stressed and it’s my fault, I—“

“Hey,” Rhodey says, and Peter quiets. He’s starting to recognize when his brain short circuits and he starts rambling incoherently. Apparently both Rhodey and Sam can recognize that, too. “You’re not stupid and none of this is your fault. I don’t know anybody who’s had to deal with what you’re going through right now. And you’re just a kid who didn’t ask for any of this. Don’t beat yourself up on it.”

And then, “Go call your aunt.”

Peter nods frantically and slides off of his chair. “Thank you,” he says, voice quiet, and does his best to stop his hands from shaking. He pads over to the landline, takes the phone from its cradle and makes his way back to his room, quietly shutting the door behind him.

Without even thinking about it, Peter finds himself sliding down against the door, trying to steady his breathing. He can feel his heart palpitating. The phone slips from his grasp, but his hand is already lying limp on the floor, so there isn’t a real drop. It lands softly, mutely, on the carpet, and Peter stares into space, like everything’s about to fall away and he’ll be lost in a void again, one wrong step sending him plummeting into nothingness for eternity.

He shuts his eyes. “What if she hates me now,” he exhales.

“Why would she hate you?” Beck asks from the other side of the room.

Peter turns his head to the side, opposite from the hand that had been holding the phone, but keeps his eyes shut. “I haven’t talked to her in almost two weeks. What kind of nephew does that? I can’t even remember the last thing we talked about. This can’t be easy for her and I just abandoned her…”

He feels the quiet rushing into the room, the only sound his evened out breathing. His head lolls back against the door. He’s so tired. He just wants to go home and wake up from this nightmare, but he already woke up from it, and this is what he has now.

Peter opens his eyes as he feels the air shift. He turns his head forward again so he can look directly into Beck’s eyes, like he clearly wants him to. Beck has moved so that he’s sitting on the floor, just across from Peter, one leg stretched out, the other knee bent up with one of his arms resting atop it, back to the base of the bed. He holds him with maybe the most serious gaze he has yet.

“She doesn’t hate you,” Beck says. Peter listens. “She knows what you’re going through. She knows that as hard as it is for her, it’s worse for you. She’s your guardian, you’re the number one thing she cares about in her life, and just knowing that you’re safe and well is going to mean the world to her. The rest of it you two will figure it out as you go, but you have to start first, and I guarantee you she wants to hear from you as much as you want to talk to her. So talk.”

Peter hesitates. In that moment, he can see what was supposed to be: a superhero mentor he’d lost. Not one that had proclaimed him as better, but one who saw him as a partner, worked with him as an equal despite a wealth more experience but was willing to impart that on him. One he would have been able to stay in touch with, work with, grow with, form a new bond with.

One who was still alive.

Peter feels something different in that moment. He can’t identify it, but it’s just a moment. What he can do, though, is nod and pick the phone back up, dial, and wait. Peter’s breath hitches for a second as he hears the phone ring, and Quentin reaches out and takes his free hand, never breaking eye contact. Peter closes his own hand around it, a mutually reassuring squeeze, and then lets go as the phone on the other end gets picked up.

“Hello?”

Peter gasps, so light the sound doesn’t register across technology, and then says, softly, “Aunt May?”

There’s a brief moment of silence on the other end, and for a second, all of Peter’s fears have come true. But then he hears a soft sound on the other end - it could almost be a laugh, shaky with tinges of relief falling off of it - and hears, in a louder voice than his own had been, “Peter?”

Peter can feel tears pinprick at the corners of his eyes as his lips curl up in a small smile. “Yeah, it’s me.”

“Peter,” his aunt says again, a little louder, a little more confident, a little more full of life, “how are you doing?”

“I miss you so much,” Peter says in lieu of answering her question. He figures that’s kind of an answer on its own. “I wish I could be at home right now, I wish it was two weeks ago and none of this had ever happened. Aunt May, how do I make this right? What do I do?”

And suddenly the medium of the phone isn’t even close to good enough, and Peter thinks for a moment it really might have been better if he hadn’t called at all, if he hadn’t gotten a taste of what it meant to be with loved ones again but _not really_. An errant thought crosses his mind, _I’m the only person who will stay in your corner,_ but he can’t remember where or what that could even be from. It doesn’t make sense.

But he snaps back to the present as soon as he hears Aunt May’s voice again, clinging to it like a lifeline. “I don’t know,” she says, and he can hear it in her voice: she should know and it hurts that she doesn’t, for the both of them. “But I miss you so much, too. I wish you could be here, too. I love you and I don’t care what the rest of the world has to say, I know you and I know we’re going to get through this. I just don’t know how yet. But we will.”

Peter holds onto the words. This is a memory he knows he’s going to keep for as long as he needs to, which might be forever. He knows it’s real because Beck is still with him, sitting across from him, watching and listening. He knows he can hear what Aunt May is saying, too, even if it isn’t his ear to the phone.

“I love you too,” Peter says, registering he hadn’t actually said that yet himself. “Do you… How much do you know about where I am?”

There’s a pause on the other end, but just for a second. “I know you’re with Mr. Stark’s friend. Happy told me that’s who he was calling. It sounded like it would be safe. Are you safe, Peter?”

Peter glances at his surroundings: his own room, his own bed, borrowed clothes and the Spider-Man suit he designed and made himself and a dead phone. He’s sheltered from the elements, somewhere climate controlled, and—

“I’m learning to cook,” he blurts out suddenly, throwing both himself and May off, he can tell.

“What?” she asks, but there’s a surprised laugh to her voice, genuine happiness leaking through as they forget the gravity of his situation.

“Yeah,” Peter says, his own small laugh coming through. His grin is broadening. He wishes she could see it, see his face, that he could be there. “I’m so safe and I have so much free time I’m learning how to cook, I have nothing else to do.”

“Well,” Aunt May says, and he wishes he could see her face, too, no doubt a matching smile except there is some doubt because they’re not actually together, “I can’t wait to try it. You’ll have to show me sometime.”

Peter beams. “That would be awesome. Maybe I’ll actually be good at it then.”

“Let’s hope so,” Aunt May laughs. “Do you have a favourite thing to make yet?”

Peter reaches up to scratch at the back of his neck with his free hand. “I’ve only cooked, like, twice so far, so not yet…” he trails off, too uncertain a waver in his voice.

There’s silence on the other end for a moment, and then Aunt May speaks up again. “It’s been almost two weeks,” she says, and he can hear the worry in her voice, feels a whole new wave of guilt over that, “are you getting enough to eat? Are you sure you’re safe?”

“Oh! Yeah, yeah,” Peter jumps in immediately, rushing to placate. “Mr. Stark’s friend is amazing, Aunt May, he’s helping me with so much. Just, the first week was really hard, and I didn’t know what to do, and…”

At that, Peter looks up into Beck’s eyes, searching for answers. He finds none, just an unreadable expression that unnerves him. Peter grasps for what to say. “… And I don’t want to talk about it,” he finishes, quiet.

He instantly feels horrible at that. She’s his aunt, she took him in, has done basically everything for him up to this point. But it’s true: he doesn’t want to talk about that first week. He’d glossed over it with Sam, too. Thinking about it makes his head hurt. And he doesn’t want to go back to that time. 

Peter shuts his eyes, waiting for a rebuke that never comes.

“You don’t have to,” Aunt May says, and relief floods Peter’s system. “But you are okay, right?”

_Okay_ is different from _safe_. It carries more weight to it. It means more.

He’s about to answer when he opens his eyes again and finds himself staring right back into Beck’s. Peter mulls his response for just a second, but then says, “Yes.”

Feeling like a liar, he immediately follows up with, “So are you, right?”

He can hear May hesitating on the other end. That, or maybe he’s just surprised her with that question. It’s not like he can read her facial expression or body language or anything; they’re still completely separated, a fact he’s having a hard time coming to terms with, apparently.

Eventually, “You don’t have to worry about that.”

“Sorry,” Peter exhales. “But I just— You are, right?”

“Yes, of course,” Aunt May says. “Peter, I don’t want you worrying about me - please look after yourself. As long as you’re okay I’ll be okay, I promise.”

“I can’t help it,” Peter looks down and smiles to himself sadly. “I just want everyone to be okay. That’s why I— I went to space, and when we were in London, and I just… I just want everyone to be okay.”

“I’m okay,” Aunt May says, and he thinks he can hear a smile in her voice, one matching his own. “I appreciate the concern. I know that’s part of why you’re as amazing a person as you are.”

“I’m so sorry I’m putting you through this,” Peter suddenly blurts out. He doesn’t have it in him to smile even sadly anymore.

“You aren’t,” Aunt May immediately rebuts. “You aren’t putting me through anything. Absolutely none of this is your fault. You don’t have anything to apologize for.”

“It’s just,” Peter starts, and before he can even really register what he’s saying, “after Uncle Ben…”

And then his voice stops cold and hers along with it. He stops breathing for a moment. Maybe she does, too. Like he wasn’t supposed to bring that up. Like the people he loves aren’t supposed to keep dying on him.

_If you’d been good enough_ reverberates around his mind, and his heart is in a vice.

“It’s okay,” Aunt May says, her voice a little quieter, but strong enough to break through, well, everything.

Peter shakes his head, like it isn’t. He can feel Beck still watching him, but he doesn’t want to look up and meet that gaze, afraid of what he might see there.

_This time it’s real and this time I screwed it up,_ Peter thinks. He doesn’t want the confirmation.

“The only thing I care about is you being safe and you coming home when you can. That’s it. Everything else we will get through after we have that. You need to talk about something? We’ll talk. We’ll take all the time in the world. But right now I need you to be selfish - and I know it’s hard for you, so think of it as doing me a favour. Be selfish and look after yourself, and I’ll be waiting and ready.”

Peter has never not loved his aunt, it’s just that he’d also never really quite considered her position in depth before, always busy with his own shit - even before all of this. And hearing the strength in her voice makes him think, _I have to match this._

“I’m in therapy now,” he blurts out, apropos of nothing. Or maybe apropos of everything.

There’s a soft cry on the other end of the line, and it sends a jolt through Peter’s heart for a second before he recognizes it as one of happiness. “Oh thank god,” Aunt May says, leaving Peter feeling conflicted.

Upset because: should he have been doing this a lot sooner?

Relieved because: if he’s done something to make his aunt happy, then he’s done something right.

“Aunt May?” Peter asks, trying to figure out which feeling to embrace.

“Hey,” she responds. “That’s great, Peter. That’s… I’m really happy you are. And I’m really happy you told me.”

Peter looks down into his lap. “It’s temporary,” he confesses, “but because of… everything. He said I should still find someone after, though. When things are okay. Someone more suited to dealing with… me. I think, I think he’s right. When all of this is over, I think—“

_Uncle Ben and Adrian Toomes and a building collapsing on him and Mr. Stark and saving Liz’s dad’s life and hiding and stowing away to go to space and desperately trying to get a gauntlet off and dying and feeling himself dying as his body tried to keep itself together and Mr. Stark dying and right in front of him and trying to be a normal kid and letting Mr. Beck down and working with Mr. Beck and a warehouse and a crane and gunshots and a train and a gun pointed at his head and Beck right in front of him right beside him no sleep can’t sleep can’t not sleep can’t talk about it can’t escape_

He locks eyes with Beck. Beck shrugs.

“— I want to keep seeing a therapist. I think I need to.”

“We’ll get it set up. I’ll be with you every step of the way. I’m so proud of you,” Aunt May says. “Can I ask who you’re talking to right now?”

_Quentin Beck,_ Peter almost says. His eyes widen a fraction at the thought. Beck flashes teeth in a faint smile. 

“Captain America,” Peter actually says once he’s found his voice again.

Aunt May gasps softly on the other end. “Wow,” she says. “Is he… licensed? Trained?”

“Yeah, but he said he doesn’t do one-on-ones, which is why it’s just temporary with me for now. But I think it’s… He’s helping me. I feel a lot better than I did before.”

“Then tell him I say thank you,” May says.

Peter actually finds himself smiling again, genuine. His head should be dizzy at the emotions he’s gone through in talking to his aunt again. It isn’t. He just feels like this was undeniably the right thing to do, finally.

“I will,” he says.

Then, “I love you.”

“I love you, too,” Aunt May says. “Be good. Keep getting better.”

“I will,” Peter says.

“Will you?” Beck asks once he’s hung up.


	5. Tethers Pt. 2

It’s not _that_ late yet. Sure, it’s dark out, but it’s not _late_.

Peter is relieved when he comes out of his room and sees that Rhodey is still up - although it looks like he’s getting ready to go to bed himself.

Peter knows his sleep schedule still isn’t the greatest. There’s been an active effort, on his part, to get things fixed again. He’s working on it. He’s getting there. But he still tends to stay up kind of late, it’s just a natural inclination, and…

“Hi,” Peter says. Rhodey looks up to see Peter holding his own phone in his hand. “Um, do you have a charger?”

Rhodey gives him a questioning look. “I thought you wanted to avoid using your phone?”

Peter inhales sharply. “I do,” he says. “But I don’t know my friend’s number…”

Peter feels downright sheepish as Rhodey levels him with an _are you serious_ gaze. A _back in my day we knew each other’s numbers_ gaze. “I talked to my aunt,” he blurts out under the pressure. “I knew how to call her. I always have. But with Ned it’s like, why do I need to know, it’s in my contacts… But I can’t get to my contacts… Because my phone is dead…”

He feels his youth weighing down on him the same way he imagines Rhodey might feel his age on himself. Rhodey looks exasperated, the same way Mr. Stark used to with him sometimes. _They were best friends,_ Peter reminds himself.

“Yeah, hold on,” Rhodey finally says, getting up and moving back over to his room. Peter waits out in the hallway, awkwardly holding his brick in his hand. He turns it over, tries turning it on again. Nothing. Because it’s been nearly two weeks and he hasn’t plugged it in once. And didn’t have his own charger on him. Why would he have? He was just going out for a quick swing with MJ, nothing more.

He relaxes when Rhodey returns, cable and charging brick in his hand. Peter can see it’s the right brand. He exhales. “Thanks.”

Rhodey doesn’t hand them over right away. “You sure you’ll be good to use your phone?” he asks.

Peter shakes his head. “I just wanna get the numbers I need off of it,” he says. “I don’t want to use it— I have a VPN but I don’t wanna risk it. I’m still gonna use your phone, if that’s okay. I just need the numbers. That’s it.”

Rhodey passes him what he needs. “Alright,” he says. Stifles a yawn. “You’re doing this now?”

Peter glances at his watch. “It’s only eleven,” he says.

“Yeah, that’s late.”

“Ned’ll be up. I’m not going to bed for another hour. I’m not tired yet.” He’s not. He’s starting to really get a proper amount of sleep but he’s still wide awake, from both nervous energy and natural body chemistry. “We’re sixteen and it’s summer,” he elaborates, feeling the need to plead his case.

Rhodey shrugs, like that’s a good enough answer. Peter absently wonders what he was doing at sixteen. If he was friends with Mr. Stark even then. “Yeah, that makes sense,” Rhodey says. Peter’s shoulders relax at the acceptance. He wonders if he’ll be like this when he’s older, if he’ll have someone younger to question and reflect back on how he was at this time. That’s so far off into the future, though. “Don’t stay up too late.”

Peter shakes his head vigorously. “I won’t,” he says. That’s when his youth leaves him, replaced with grave seriousness he knows Rhodey believes, too: they both remember what happened the last time Peter didn’t get enough sleep.

Peter wonders if that’s prematurely aged him, too. He slides back into his room, plugs his phone in, and taps pen to paper that he’d found in the drawers of the desk.

“Find another father figure already?” Beck asks him.

Peter shakes his head, staring as his phone indicates it’s charging again, but doesn’t have enough juice to actually run just yet. “That never works out. I’m done with that.”

“That’s a shame,” Beck sighs behind him, settling on the bed. Peter ignores him.

Peter looks at his phone as it blinks back to life, the screen’s light casting an eerie shadow over his features. For a fraction of a second, things move in slow motion: the phone lighting up, his eyes flicking over to it, and…

And his throat seizing up as panic takes hold of him, old notifications over several days pouring in. He needs to be quick, he knows he needs to be quick, but there’s such a backlog, hundreds of unread texts, what if one of them was important, what if a dozen were, what if a hundred were; missed calls and he turned social media notifications off at least but there are news articles and—

Beck takes the phone, leaving it plugged in but lifting it out of sight from Peter’s widened eyes. “You’re doing a bad job of being paranoid,” he says, staring intently at the screen, his own hands working over it. “I’m going to start reading numbers out. You ready?”

Peter nods, though he’s not entirely sure if it’s actually him nodding. He holds the pen, point facing the paper, and gets ready to collect the numbers, inscribe them and keep them so he (or Beck) can turn his phone off sooner rather than later.

Beck has no problem going through everything old and new, moving to his contacts with complete indifference. “Leeds” comes before “MJ” so Peter scrawls down Ned’s number first, then MJ’s, and before he knows it the light from his phone has gone out and he’s plunged back into relative darkness with Beck.

Beck is still holding his phone. “Do you want to keep it plugged in?” he asks.

“Is it turned off?” Peter replies, his own voice sounding far away.

“Yeah,” Beck says. “I’m not trying to get you caught here. That doesn’t help me. Do you want to keep it plugged in so it at least has a full charge later?”

Peter can’t think of what he’ll need his phone for later. It’s not usable, not in current circumstances. He swallows and nods, though - something could come up. He doesn’t know.

Speaking of not knowing things, “How did I get the numbers if you’re not real?” Peter asks.

“It was still you. You’re probably just compartmentalizing. Happy to help,” Beck says, his voice a cross between sincere and dry. He sets the phone back down, keeping it plugged in. “You’re at two per cent battery now, by the way.”

Peter looks down at the numbers he’d written down and shakes his head. “How do I know these are their actual numbers and not just random digits?”

Beck shrugs. “Do you want to turn your phone back on and see for yourself?”

Peter pales at the notion, both paranoia and the possibility of seeing all those notifications and unanswered attempts at contact giving him pause.

Beck gives him a small, sympathetic smile. “Yeah, probably not the best idea.”

Peter shakes his head again and runs a hand through his hair. “But how do I _know_ —“

“You call them,” Beck says. “Or do you not trust me?”

“I do,” Peter says, the instant answer tumbling out of his mouth before he’s barely even able to register the question. He tears his eyes away from the numbers before him, past the black screen of his phone, to look up at Beck, standing above him. He wasn’t expecting to say that at all.

Beck smiles down at him, puts a protective hand on his shoulder. Fifteen minutes ago Peter probably would have shrugged it off. Instead he looks down at it for a second, then back up into Beck’s sincere, open, honest face. He doesn’t smile back, just looks upwards, mouth slightly open, like an awed sort of fish.

“Then you’ve got your friends’ numbers and you’re good to go,” Beck says, taking his hand off of Peter’s shoulder and moving back over to the bed. He flops down on it and doesn’t say anything else, hands tucked behind his head, staring at the ceiling.

Peter takes an extra moment to stare at Beck, trying to figure out where _all this_ has come from. He can’t, so he turns back to the paper, picks up Rhodey’s phone, and dials the first number he wrote down.

It starts ringing. And keeps ringing. It’s agonizing to listen to. Peter can hear his heart in his chest, he did something wrong or Ned won’t pick up or—

“Uh,” a voice sounds from the other end, “hi?”

“Ned!” Peter nearly shouts, jumping up from his chair. He can see Beck smiling from the bed. He turns his back to him and ignores it, basking in the sound of Ned’s baffled voice instead. “It’s Peter! Hi!”

“Peter!” Ned responds, his own cadence matching Peter’s joyous one instantly. “Hey!”

Peter’s happiness devolves into a shaky laugh. “Oh man,” he says, starting to pace, “I didn’t know if you were going to pick up.”

“I wasn’t going to, at first,” Ned confesses. His voice has been wide awake the entire time; Peter caught him off guard, but if he had to guess, he’d bet Ned paused a video game in deciding to answer his phone. He really hopes it wasn’t multi-player. It probably wasn’t. “I mean, who _calls_? And a strange number? Come on.”

“I know, I know,” Peter says, and when Ned puts it that way, he can see the humour in the situation, too: if the situations were flipped, he’d have probably stared at his buzzing phone, strange number calling it at almost the middle of the night, and uttered a swear or two. But actually answering it? He’s not sure he’d even do that. “Circumstances. How come you picked up? I mean I’m happy you did obviously, but why?”

“I wasn’t going to,” Ned confesses. “But then I thought, why would someone be calling me? Seriously, why? Either it was spam or… I’m the guy in the chair.”

“You are the guy in the chair,” Peter says, nodding enthusiastically. He vaguely registers on some level how intense it is that all of his worries from just a minute ago have melted away; he’s slid seamlessly back into this pattern with Ned, like nothing horrible ever happened, like he didn’t leave him hanging with no answer other than _I don’t know_ when asked if he was _okay_.

He’s a bad friend, maybe.

“So,” Ned asks, jerking Peter back to reality, “did you need something?”

Peter laughs, flopping back down in his chair and spinning a little. “A friend?” he replies, a little weak, a lot hopeful.

“Oh,” Ned says. “Yeah, I can do that.”

“I missed you so much, man.”

“Me too. Summer kinda sucks now. A lot, actually. Whose phone are you using, by the way? Where are you?”

Peter stops spinning and leans back, looking up at the ceiling. The room he’s in is relatively bare; bed, desk, chair, lightly scattered belongings, some his and several lent. It’s nothing like the room he should be in, filled with his own things and the constant glow of the last thing Mr. Stark ever made for him, something to be revered more than worn at this point. Where he is is empty.

“I’m with a friend of Iron Man’s,” Peter says. “I don’t know how much more I should say, I probably shouldn’t talk about it too much, but I’ve been with him the entire time.”

“Dude,” Ned says, “that is so cool. I mean, it’s not cool that you’re hiding or on the run or whatever, but it’s cool, right? That you have people like that who want to help you? I mean, shit, dude, you knew Iron Man—“ His voice cuts itself off, like he’s suddenly stumbled on a topic he wasn’t supposed to.

Peter remembers an art class assignment, all the drawings in memory; he hadn’t known what to do. He’d talked to Ned about it after. It hadn’t been a pretty moment for either of them, and Peter had elected to take the failing grade because he could remember literally seeing the light fade from his eyes up close.

“You know what I mean,” Ned picks up again at Peter’s silence.

Peter blinks himself back to life. “Yeah,” he says. “No, it’s fine. And you’re right. It is kinda cool.” It is - literally nobody else has the kind of opportunity he does. All of the other superheroes really are so much older. And it’s better to think of it as cool rather than isolating, to have his friends look at him in awe when he stands alongside other Avengers and not have to see his moments curled up alone in the dark doubting everything he is.

“How much have you been keeping up with everything?” Ned asks.

“Oh,” Peter says. “I, uh, haven’t. At all. I’ve actually stayed completely off the grid. No phone or anything.”

There’s an extended silence on the other end before Ned finally asks, “… How?”

Peter laughs.

_By going crazy,_ he thinks.

“I have no idea,” he says. “It just seemed like a good idea.”

“Oh,” Ned says. “Well, do you want me to fill you in? On the good stuff, at least?”

Peter thinks. There probably can’t be that much good stuff, because if there was, then surely Rhodey would have told him and he’d be fine to go back home by now, right? But that doesn’t mean everything has to be bad… so…

“Sure,” Peter says, forcing his body to relax. “Tell me the good stuff.”

“Oh man,” Ned’s voice perks up immediately, like he’s a dam and he’s just been given permission to let all of the water come rushing out. “Dude. Dude. You haven’t seen Flash’s reaction then. It was _magical_. I swear you broke his brain.”

“Oh my god,” Peter nearly chokes on the words. “I didn’t even— I never thought about him. Oh my god. How bad is it?” He’s moved to the edge of his seat now, leaning forward, like he’s going to get a better visual of what Ned’s going to tell him. 

“I creeped on his Insta so much,” Ned says. “I really didn’t have anything better to do—“ _because you abandoned him_ “— and he was firing off posts constantly. His first was like, ‘I GO TO SCHOOL WITH THAT GUY,’ all caps and everything, I can still hear the shriek from his stories. He was trying to process it in real time for everyone to see, it was amazing.”

“How many times did he insult me? How much does he hate Spider-Man now?” Peter asks.

“See, that’s when it got weird. He doesn’t,” Ned says. “I don’t think he loves you even more, because that would be impossible, but after a couple of hours he launched into full on defending you. I’m talking, like, essays. Every day. And he yells at people who disagree in the comments. He’s even been on the news a couple of times, because, like, people want to talk to Peter Parker’s real life friends I guess? And he won’t go so far as to say you’re friends, I don’t think he can physically make himself, but he also keeps talking about how good and nice a guy you are. It’s _weird_ and I’ve loved every second of it.”

Peter snorts. “Holy shit,” he says. “That’s wild. How do you think he’ll react when I come back?”

He swears he can hear Ned’s grin through the phone. “I have no idea but I really want to be there for it. Please let me be there for it.”

“Of course, yeah, obviously,” Peter says, his own grin broadening on his face. “You have no idea how much I needed to hear all that. _Flash Thompson._ Holy shit.”

“I know, right?” Ned says, cracking up. “I know things are messed up right now, but hey, at least that happened. I’ve saved his stories, by the way. For posterity. And so you have a solid day’s worth of entertainment when we can hang out again. Trust me, it’ll pick you right up.”

“You’re amazing. You’re the best friend ever.”

“I’m just the guy in the chair,” Ned replies, bashful. “Uh, did you want to hear the other good stuff?”

Peter kicks his leg out, propelling himself to spin around slowly. Beck’s still lounging on the bed, not really looking like he’s paying attention, though Peter knows he’s getting every word of this. “Yeah.”

“So a bunch of Avengers are vouching for you. I think Captain America testified for you in the Senate? Or the U.N.? Or both? I don’t know. Both Captain Americas, I mean. The old guy and the new guy. So did the Hulk. And War Machine. And Hawkeye. Do you know all these people, like, actually?”

“Most of them, kinda, yeah,” Peter says. “I haven’t really met Hawkeye or the Hulk. That’s cool, though.”

“Yeah, it is,” Ned agrees. “Tony Stark’s wife was on the news, too. She said something about, uh, about how everyone blipped back because of you? Like, that when the Avengers found a solution, Tony Stark didn’t want to do it, because he was afraid of what would happen, but then she said he remembered you and how much he loved you - which, seriously man, that’s absolutely incredible, Iron Man _loved you_ , those were her exact words - and if it meant getting you back he was willing to try. And it worked. 

“Oh, uh, and the Queen— King? I don’t know— of Asgard wrote an op-ed. I think Doctor Strange did something too but I don’t remember. Hey, are you okay? You stopped talking.”

At some point, Peter had slid off the chair and is now sitting on the floor, leaning up against the desk. He’s looking up at the bed now, Beck looking back down at him, locked in eye contact. 

It takes a moment for Ned’s last question to get through to him. “Yeah, I’m okay,” Peter says, finally. “I just— wow. That’s a lot.”

“You really didn’t know about any of that?” Ned asks.

“No, I was— Things were bad and I didn’t want to see something that would just freak me out, you know? So I avoided everything. I didn’t—“

For a second Beck is replaced with the corpse of Iron Man, lunging up at him from the bed, dead and decaying, the light from his eye and arc reactor flooding the room. Then he’s back to Beck, staring down at him with concern. Peter’s mouth is dry.

“You didn’t what?” Ned’s voice is distant in his ear.

Peter opens and closes his mouth a couple of times, but it takes a bit for something to finally come out. “I didn’t see anything,” he finishes quietly, not sure what he’s referring to or if he’s trying to convince himself. “Sorry, I think I kind of just got tired there.”

“It’s not even midnight.” He can hear the confusion in Ned’s voice.

Peter laughs a little, but his heart isn’t in it, it’s just a sound to fill the air. He’s pretty sure Ned can tell. “Yeah, I know, I’ve just been… trying to fix my sleeping, you know? Because of the stress and everything. So now I’m getting tired earlier. It’s weird.”

“Oh,” Ned says. Peter can’t really discern his tone. “I guess that makes sense. I’m gonna stay up, though. Hey, if you aren’t using your phone, how do I get in touch with you again? Do I call this number?”

“Oh,” Peter says. He can’t turn away from Beck, he’s finding. Like he’s his lifeline now. Or that if he turns away he’ll turn back into Iron Man and kill him. He’s not sure which. “Maybe… It’s actually War Machine’s personal number, you know? I’m staying with War Machine. So if you call it’d be me or him answering it. Which is probably fine if you tell him who you are. He’s really, really nice.”

“That’s so cool,” Ned breathes into the phone. "Not that you have to hide out I mean, but you’re crashing with War Machine… That’s cool.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, swallowing thinly. “It is.”

“I like that you said he’s nice because I watched him talk about you to the Senate or whatever and he looked ready to straight up kill people who said shit about you at points.”

“That’s… that’s actually really nice,” Peter says, voice softening, touched. He’s going to have to thank Rhodey in the morning.

He’s about to hang up when a thought occurs to him. “Oh _shit_ ,” he says into the phone, back to a normal speaking volume. It’s so loud. He hadn't realized how quiet he’d gotten since Ned had told him about Mrs. Stark. Or Ms. Potts. He doesn’t know.

“What?” Ned asks, startled.

“Can you tell MJ I’m going to call her? But not from my phone? Because there’s no chance she answers anything from a number she doesn’t recognize.”

“Oh yeah, no. I don’t think she even really answers from numbers she does have,” Ned says. “But are you going to call her now? I thought you said you were tired.”

Peter shakes his head, realizes Ned can’t see it, is thankful Ned can’t see it because he’s sure he doesn’t look great right now anyway, and says, “No. Sometime tomorrow… late in the morning, maybe? Early afternoon? I don’t know what will work for her…”

“Dude, if she knows it’s you, she’ll drop everything and answer.”

“Really?” Peter asks, feeling his heart soar a little. They haven’t talked since… since everything started to go horribly wrong. Since he thought they were fine and nothing has been since.

“Yeah,” Ned says. “I’ll tell her.”

Then, “It was really good to talk to you.”

“Yeah, same,” Peter says. “I— Thanks for being my guy in the chair.”

“Always,” Ned says. “‘Night.”

“‘Night,” Peter replies, hanging up.

He sets the phone down on the floor and stares up at Beck, eyes wild, tears starting to form at their edges. “Everyone’s back because of _me_ ,” he whispers. “And I couldn’t even save _him_.”

Beck gets up and off the bed, coming to join Peter on the floor. He leans his back against the desk alongside him, mimicking his position. He doesn’t reach out to touch him or hold him, he just sits there, looking ahead, just like Peter is.

Peter almost expects him to say something reassuring, like, _Don’t blame yourself_ or _You’re just a kid_ or _Nobody could_ , but he doesn’t. Instead, Quentin just quietly says, “Yeah,” and Peter finds himself almost thankful he does.

“Because I’m not good enough,” Peter says. “All these people - these actual Avengers, not me trying to fit in, they’re _actually Avengers_ \- are going out of their way to talk me up and I can’t do anything because I’m stuck holed up with you because I’m actually insane.”

“So what are you going to do about it?” Quentin asks.

Peter turns to him, surprised. He’s blurry. He wipes at his eyes, getting rid of the tears, bringing everything back into focus.

“I don’t know,” Peter says, but that’s kind of a lie. He has… something of an idea. A vague inkling. It hasn’t even made itself known to him yet, like a seed he hadn’t known he’d planted and is waiting for it to poke above the soil, announcing itself to him. He stares intently at that spot in the ground, that barren garden in his mind, waiting for it to come.

* * *

Peter sleeps in. He didn’t set an alarm, just realized he’d passed out at some point on the floor. Neck sore from being propped up against the desk, he’d blindly gotten up, actually crawled under the covers, and just gone back to a dreamless sleep, waking up whenever.

Which turned out to be really late morning. He’d gotten more sleep than normal, but that was fine, he figured. Getting more sleep couldn’t hurt, right? And it’s not like he actually has anything to do today. Any day, really.

He tries to figure out what he’s missing as he goes through the motions of a morning routine. He saw Sam yesterday; he won’t be seeing him again until tomorrow. But he swears he had something to do…

It comes to him as he’s in the middle of brushing his teeth: he talked to Aunt May again. It was _real_. And he talked to Ned, too. Got a sense of the outside world. And… MJ.

He hasn’t talked with MJ yet. He was going to do that any time now. Now.

Peter spits the toothpaste out and rinses his mouth at a newly discovered pace, powered by both excitement and anxiety. _I can’t wait to talk to her_ mixes with _What if she doesn’t pick up_ and his heart is thudding in his chest at both thoughts.

He owes her a conversation, though. Like he owed Aunt May and Ned. He really, really hopes she wants to talk to him, even after he abandoned her ( _abandoned all of them_ ). 

Peter pads his way back into his room, finding the landline still resting on the floor where he’d left it after his conversation with Ned. He picks it up and looks around the room, finding the paper with Ned and MJ’s numbers on it; he takes that, too. The room is empty, though, and it feels off, so he makes his way back out to the living room, where he finds Beck just lounging on the couch.

“Hey,” Peter says.

“Hey,” Beck replies, raising a hand in greeting and unceremoniously dropping it.

Peter makes his way to the chair he’s gotten so comfortable with and sits down, legs curled up under him. He looks at the paper, at the numbers, and dials.

The phone takes forever to ring and it rings forever. Peter is barely willing to risk breathing as time drags out and slows, and he’s about to mentally berate himself again when he suddenly hears the click of someone answering.

Only nobody says anything, and he eventually has to let out the breath he doesn’t realize he’s been holding.

“MJ?” he asks, tepidly, _Oh please let this actually be her number please please please._

“Peter,” she answers, and he feels all of the tension go out of him. He heaves a sigh as he falls backwards into the chair, weak with relief. Her voice seemed kind of shaky, too.

“I’m so sorry it’s taken me this long to call,” he says. 

“It’s okay,” MJ says. “I know it’s not your fault. Ned told me you guys talked last night?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. “This is the first chance I’ve actually had to talk to people. But I also didn’t want to call you in like, the middle of the night. Ned I knew would be fine but…”

“No, yeah, thanks for not doing that,” MJ says, laughing a little. Peter stretches his limbs out, starting to get comfortable, dopey smile crossing his face. “I would have freaked out if my phone started buzzing out of nowhere.”

“Right!” Peter says. “I knew it’d be a bad idea. Would you have picked up at all if Ned hadn’t told you I’d be calling?”

“I think you know the answer to that,” MJ replies, and Peter laughs. “So, how are you? Are things better now if you can call us?”

“Kinda, yeah,” Peter says. “I mean, using my own phone would be better. Well, actually being there would be better. But, you know…”

“You have a VPN, right? That should help. There are also encrypted apps, hold on, I can tell you what to download—“

“Ah,” Peter starts. He kind of wanted to just talk to MJ, not get into all of this. “No, it’s okay. I have the VPN you told me to get. I’ve just been a little too freaked out to actually use my phone lately. It’s okay though, I’m working on it. I’m getting better. I’ll… I’ll figure it out.”

“You sure?” MJ asks, and Peter can hear the disappointment in her voice.

He looks down at the paper with the numbers he’d written down on it, then figures, _Ah, what the hell. Couldn’t hurt._

“Hold on, let me get a pen.”

He can’t help but smile as MJ goes through a bunch of things for him to download and as she lists off the benefits of each one. _Maybe these will help,_ he thinks. _She does know what she’s talking about._

“Thanks, MJ,” he says when she finally finishes.

“You can text me with some of those,” she says. “And nobody else will ever know. We should be doing that instead of… I don’t know whose phone you’re calling me from but Ned said it was someone cool.”

“Oh,” Peter says, rubbing at his neck awkwardly. “Yeah. I’m just, I’ll let you know when I can, is that okay? I have the VPN and stuff but my phone is kind of… scary, I guess, right now.”

“Scary?”

“I tried turning it back on again for the first time in ages last night and there were so many texts and stuff it just kind of… overloaded my brain? I don’t even want to look at it right now. But I will! Later. Just, not now. Sorry, this doesn’t make any sense…”

“No, it does, it’s fine,” MJ says. “I… I kind of get it.”

The way her voice suddenly goes quiet raises immediate alarm bells for Peter. “MJ? What’s wrong?”

“Nothing really,” she says, and she’s got most of her voice back at that, but there’s still this underlying current of something that has her a little shaken. “It… I’ll be fine. Don’t worry about me?”

“I mean,” Peter starts, “I kind of can’t help it…”

“Yeah, I know,” MJ says, laughing a little. It’s kind of a sad little laugh. “Um. You remember after that video came out…?”

“Yeah,” Peter says. He turns from the kitchen island where he’d been writing the apps down and leans against it, looking back at Beck. Beck looks back at him, impassive. “We’d just been swinging and… I left you right away because I didn’t want you involved. I thought if I just left nobody would bug you.”

“Not at first,” MJ says. Peter feels a cold wave wash over him. “I went home right after. I got what you were doing, it was fine. But a couple of days later the FBI showed up at my place. I guess there was video or something, or someone saw us together, and they traced it back to me and found me—“

“MJ, I’m so sorry,” Peter immediately blurts out. “I’m so sorry—“

“No, it’s fine,” MJ says, interrupting him. “It’s not your fault. Not any more than mine, at least. They wanted to talk to me but I’m not ever going to say anything. And they can’t take me anywhere, I know my rights and besides, I’m a minor. So they’re not— They tried to come back again but I’m not opening the door for them or talking to them or anything. I promise.”

She sounds fine. Hell, Peter knows she _is_ fine, she’s MJ. 

But still, that cold feeling has him by the heart, and he knows it’s not totally fine, like it would be if none of this had ever happened to begin with. “I know you won’t,” he says, and laughs a little, surprised by how organic it is. “I’d actually like to see them try.”

MJ laughs with him at that, and it feels like the ice has been shattered, at least a little. “I should thank you, really,” she says. “I never knew how I’d react if something like this actually happened and… now I know. I know I can take it.”

“You shouldn’t have had to ever actually find out, though,” Peter says.

“Eh,” MJ says, and Peter thinks she’s probably shrugging. “It was bound to happen at some point anyway, like at a protest or something.”

“Still.”

It’s silent between them for a bit, before MJ finally concedes, “… Yeah. But you know what? It’s not that scary. I mean, it’s kind of scary, but it’s not even close to what I was feeling when I ran back to that bridge in London, before I saw you were safe again. If I can get through that I can get through anything. Also I get to be righteously indignant now, which is awesome.”

Peter laughs, but it’s half-hearted, his smile falling a bit from his face. _You terrified her,_ he thinks. _You. More than the government, more than the FBI, you put her in a situation that terrified her. That was all you._

“Anyway,” MJ says, snapping Peter back out of it, “other than the phone thing, and the not being here thing, you’re okay?”

“Oh,” Peter says. “Yeah. Especially after talking to Ned last night, I mean— He told me about Flash.” 

A real smile does make its way back on his face as MJ barks out a sharp laugh. “Okay, yeah, that’s been amazing,” she says. “The FBI should come knocking on his door. He can livestream it and everything.”

That gets them both snickering. “Man,” Peter says once it’s died down, “things are going to be so weird when I come back.”

“Probably, yeah,” MJ says. “But they’ll be good, I think.”

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. People like Spider-Man. Also, selfishly? I’m glad I got to know before the rest of the world.”

Peter thinks on that for a moment. “Me too,” he says. “It was just you, Ned, and my aunt. You’re the only person I ever actually got to tell, though. The others just kind of… found out.”

“They walked in on you, huh?”

“… Kind of, yeah.”

“And I actually investigated, kind of,” MJ says. Peter can practically hear her beaming on the other end of the line. 

“And you were right,” Peter says, smiling.

“I usually am,” MJ says. “Hey, I think I’ve gotta go now, but I— It was really nice to talk to you again. You know, know you’re okay and stuff.”

“Yeah,” Peter says, dreading hanging up, losing that connection, knowing what’s coming as soon as he does. “You too. I— I miss you.”

“Same,” MJ says. “A lot.”

They say their goodbyes, and as Peter hangs up, his eyes connect with Beck’s again. “Don’t start,” he says, already knowing what’s coming.

Beck shrugs. “Okay, I won’t.”

And it might be worse, because that lets Peter’s mind take off on its own. He’d put MJ in danger, after all. Aunt May hadn’t said anything about what she was dealing with, but Peter’s reasonably confident in figuring her circumstances are far from ideal, too. And Ned had sounded fine, but Mr. Stark had come up and—

_Mr. Stark kept relationships, though,_ Peter thinks to himself. _He got married and you’re with his best friend and his other friend is… with? my aunt. And they stuck by him, right until the end—_

That thought strikes Peter cold, and it prompts Beck to speak up. “You’re not going to die,” he says.

Peter just nods dumbly, worrying at his lip. He looks at the phone in his hand, at its cradle right next to where Beck is sitting, and moves to set it back down. 

They’re close now. Beck stands up, stands above Peter. Peter looks up at him. “They’re not going to, either,” he says.

Peter just nods dumbly again.

“But they might keep getting hurt.”

Nod.

“And I might be the one to hurt them,” Peter says, numbly. “That’s what you told me. Before— In that last dream, before. Before Sam.”

“Yeah,” Quentin says, sympathetic but matter of fact. “So what are you going to do?”

Peter looks back to the paper, with his friends’ numbers written on it, with the apps MJ told him to get. He goes back for it, holding it, staring down at it blankly. He returns it back to what’s become his room and looks around at what he’s got to work with. This. A charged phone he doesn’t want to turn back on. A pile of clothes Rhodey lent him— maybe gave him, they’re older and he had them lying around, maybe they’re just his now—

He goes to straighten those up, sparing a glance at his Spider-Man suit, wondering what he can even do with that since it’s so recognizable. Everything else he can start to organize, at least, as he feels the sprout of an idea to start to peak up from the cracks in his mind.

He remembers Mr. Stark in front of him. Not the vision Mysterio had created - the actual, real man, taking his last breaths. And he remembers how it felt to be left behind. Not just left behind, but - permanently.

“I don’t want to hurt them,” he says to himself as he puts everything he can in order. “I don’t. I don’t. I don’t.”

_You might not have a choice,_ and he’s not sure whose voice he thinks that in, his or Beck’s.


	6. Interlude: Rhodey & Tony (& Peter)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I've got some unfinished, unpublished Tony-centric stuff I really gotta get back to some day. What I've got so far does feature Rhodey pretty heavily, though, so there's a blueprint in all this.

Peter returns to the living room, sits on the couch, and waits.

And waits.

He’s hunched over himself, feet planted firmly on the ground, hands clasped together before him, head down and staring at nothing. He doesn’t know how long he’s in that position, time both passing by and standing completely still, until he hears the door opening and then clicking shut.

Peter looks up at Rhodey. He can only imagine his appearance is giving pause: he knows he’s a little disheveled, his eyes rimmed red from when he’d been crying earlier thinking about initiating this, but he’s out of tears for the moment. Hopes he is for a while now; he’s getting exhausted doing nothing.

Rhodey looks back at him. “Hey,” he says, setting his bag down and walking over towards him. “Is everything alright?”

“Can we talk?” Peter asks, voice a little rough around the edges.

“Sure,” Rhodey says, moving to sit down beside him. “About…?”

Peter clears his throat. “It’s personal.”

“I thought it might be, yeah.”

“No,” Peter says, “about you. And Mr. Stark.”

Rhodey pauses at that. “Give me a minute,” he says. “Let me get my shit together.”

Peter can’t help but crack a small smile, giving a small nod as Rhodey stands back up and makes his way towards his bag. It’s a physical reference, Peter knows - he’d just gotten home, give him a minute to get comfortable again, get things in order, do his normal routine - but he can’t help but feel guilty if it’s maybe a mental one, too.

For as much as Peter doesn’t want to impose, Rhodey is the only person he can actually have this talk with, and he has to impose or it’ll never happen. And there are some things he just needs to know.

_Not need, want,_ he mentally corrects himself. But it’s a strong want. And if Mr. Stark’s best friend is the one who takes him in, then Peter figures he’ll understand.

It’s closer to ten minutes than just one, but Peter doesn’t worry about Rhodey bailing on him, and he eventually makes his way back. He’s changed clothes, Peter notices, less business-looking and closer to what he’s wearing: loose loungewear, like he’s getting ready to settle in for a long night.

And shorts, Peter can’t help but observe. He’d known about Rhodey’s leg braces, has a vague recollection of _being there_ when he was shot down, but since he’s set the topic of conversation for the night and had never seen them on full display before, really— He’s staring.

Rhodey notices, of course, and pats one of them. “Yeah,” he says, “but even with the lifetime warranty, I might be a little screwed if they stop working.”

“I could go into robotics,” Peter says without thinking. He’s smart. He knows part of the reason Mr. Stark chose him in the first place is because he’s smart. Give him his college years and he could master this. “So if they do stop working, you’ll have someone who knows—“

“Relax, kid,” Rhodey says, and it’s lighthearted but Peter snaps his mouth shut instantly, embarrassed. “It was just a joke. There’s a division at Stark Industries working on this sort of thing. There are other companies, too. Tony was a genius but he didn’t always do literally _everything_ on his own. I’ll be fine. Do whatever comes naturally to you. The world isn’t ever going to have another Tony Stark; don’t try to replace him, just be yourself.”

“Okay,” Peter says, quiet. “Sorry.”

“Nothing to apologize for,” Rhodey says. “What did you want to know about him?”

Peter tries to take a deep breath. Almost succeeds, too. “When I was talking to my friend, he asked if I knew any of what was going on. About me, I mean. And Spider-Man. I told him I didn’t because it… it wasn’t a good idea. But he told me about the good stuff, like the Avengers testifying on my behalf. Like you— Thank you for that, I’ll never be able to repay you for any of this, ever—“

“Please don’t worry about that,” Rhodey cuts him off. Peter realizes he hadn’t even been looking at him, staring off at a spot well in front of him on the floor instead. He looks up and nods.

“Still.”

“Okay,” Rhodey says.

Peter pauses, waiting for him to finish, but he has. He nods to himself and is sure to make eye contact with Rhodey this time. No shying away. Not now and not for the rest of the night. “He - my friend - also told me about what his wife— widow?— had to say.”

And maybe he does have to stop there, for a moment. Recognition flickers in Rhodey’s eyes, though, and he emits a quiet, “Oh.”

“Is it true? What she said? That she said it? That the whole universe— That Mr. Stark only tried because—“

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. Then, “I’m not sure how much detail you want to hear.”

“All of it,” Peter says, surprising himself with how firm his voice is. “I already got that first shock to my system. I’m already dealing with feelings of being messed up. I don’t want any punches pulled, not when it comes to him. Please.”

Rhodey bites at his lip, but it’s just for a second. Peter thinks - hopes? - that he’s seen something in his gaze, heard something in the tone of his voice. Yes, Peter is still a child. But he’s done a lot of adult stuff, too. He’s an Avenger. There’s something grown up about him after all.

“Tony was messed up when he got back from Titan. Which is I guess where you were,” Rhodey says. Peter nods. “He wasn’t quite on death’s door, but he was close. One of the first things he said when he got back on the ground was about losing you.”

“What about everyone else?” Peter asks. “We weren’t the only ones there. The others died, too… I was the last one to go.” His insides churn for a moment. He feels horrible. He can still remember the feeling of his body desperately trying to keep itself knit together. “I saw them.”

Rhodey shakes his head. “Just you.”

Peter nods to himself, feeling impossibly small. 

“Anyway,” Rhodey starts back up, “he quit after that. He stopped being an Avenger. He was pretty clear about it. He recovered, physically, he got married, he had a kid. And he stopped talking to all of us - except me. Tony had been living in fear a lot of his life, but it shifted when he became Iron Man. It shifted again after the Battle of New York. How much of that do you remember, anyway? How old were you then?”

Peter shrugs. “Like ten. I remember hiding in a closet with my aunt and uncle. I remember seeing Mr. Stark fly into that portal on the news after.”

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “That messed him up, too. He had a protectionist instinct before, but that’s what really sent him into overdrive. So when it happened, and he’d failed, and he lost you, specifically… That broke him. He wouldn’t consider doing anything hero-like again. He still played with the suit sometimes, experimented, helped me out with mine whenever I needed or we just wanted to hang out. But he was done, permanently.

“I wasn’t; I didn’t have anything else to do over the five years, so I kept at it. So imagine my surprise when he calls me up one morning and says he’d been paid a visit. That they had an idea for how to fix things, with time travel. That he’d turned them away, because time travel is dangerous and for the first time in an _extremely long time_ he’d settled into something he was happy with, he wasn’t constantly anxious about, and he couldn’t lose that. He’d cut his losses five years before that moment and at some point in the in between made peace with that.

“I knew that, so of course I asked him what had changed. He got quiet at that, which was always rare for him. Less so in those five years, but still, rare.

“Then, finally, he said, ‘I’ve been an asshole.’

“‘Yeah, I know, but how, specifically, this time?’ I asked.

“‘I got lucky. When everything— When he— I got lucky. I had Pepper. I had you. But everyone else— God, Thor alone—‘

“‘Tony,’ I said.

“‘Yeah,’ he replied. ‘Yeah. I could live with what the rest of the world lost, because I was fine. But Rhodey. The kid. I lost the kid.’

“That was what he fixated on. He’d moved on with his life, probably more than anyone else in the world had, but he found a picture of the two of you together and was fixated on that. I think that, combined with the visit some of the others gave him - having to look in the faces of friends who had lost people just as important to them as Pepper and I were to him - jolted him back into action.

“So when Pepper is in the media saying it was Peter Parker who inspired Tony Stark to try one last gambit to get everyone back, she’s as close to the truth as any of us will ever be, short of the man himself coming back to confirm.” Peter flinches at that; Rhodey’s gaze tells him he saw, and he falls silent for a second, but doesn’t pursue it further. “I think he would have come back around to the idea eventually, his own curiosity would have gnawed at him until he committed, but who knows how long that would have taken and what would have even been possible if he’d waited. His wanting you back spurred him into action sooner rather than later. Almost immediately, actually, I think. You were the only person he’d lost and once he was reminded of that he couldn’t live with it anymore.”

Peter’s heart has calmed back down from the brief mental flash of Iron Man rising from the grave. It’s perfectly steady now, actually, something he hasn’t had the chance to appreciate as often as he would have liked over the past couple of weeks. He can feel the tears starting to come back and he blinks furiously, trying to will them away. He’s an adult. He has to be an adult for this part. He told Rhodey he wanted all of the details and he has to prove he can handle them.

He also can’t think of what to say in response to all of that. It takes him several moments to come up with something, to grasp onto the words to ask what he needs to know next.

“How do you deal with that?” Peter asks. “How do you handle being that important a person to someone? Especially someone like… someone as great as…”

“Lots of people have someone that important to them,” Rhodey says. “Take you and your aunt, for example. You both probably feel that way about each other, right?”

“Sure,” Peter says, but he can’t imagine loving someone so much he would literally figure out how to bend time to get back to them. He loves Aunt May more than anything, more than anyone, but even then, the concept is so great it escapes his imagination. “But there are murals of Mr. Stark _everywhere_. _Everyone_ knows who he was. And out of everyone in the world, it was _me_ — I’m just some kid—“

“So was he, once,” Rhodey says. Peter blinks and then blinks again, thrown off at the mist he can see gathering in Rhodey’s eyes. Rhodey has been practical and dry and caring in his time with Peter, but Peter hasn’t seen him get emotional. Even after he’d almost shot him, Rhodey had barely displayed anything other than concern for him. And it’s not like he’s even crying right now, but they just turned into that personal corner Peter had warned him about. The one that had Rhodey asking to give him a minute or ten, to get his shit together.

Peter feels like he’s intruding, now. He fiddles with his hands, interlocked fingers twisting and turning over one another. 

“Rhodey?” he asks.

Rhodey’s focus sharpens. He hadn’t gone anywhere, not like Peter has been, but his attention is back on Peter. Peter swallows, and then continues, “When did you guys meet? How long were you friends? How did you _become_ friends?”

This is what he needs to know. He needs to see the fully human side. He needs to break away from the idolization he’d held when Mr. Stark was alive, because he’s a mess and Happy had told him Mr. Stark was often a mess but the dead get deified and Peter needs to know it’s still possible to pull through and if Mr. Stark did then maybe he can, too.

And he had friends. Before he was Iron Man, he had friends. Like Peter does, always had, with Ned, long before any spider bite. That is… maybe something they had in common. Should have in common.

And he just wants to hear about that. Wants to hear something good. Because now everything is a zombie lunging to drag him down into the ground with him and it wasn’t real, he needs something real, he needs what he had back, he needs what his best friend had.

Rhodey takes a moment to answer, but it isn’t like he’s hesitating - it’s more like a lifetime is flashing before his eyes, one already well-lived and probably well-revisited in the months since Mr. Stark died. At least Peter had to go back to school in the aftermath, had to focus on something else, had to keep living life like he wasn’t a part of a battle for the universe at all; he doesn’t know how everyone else dealt with things.

“Second grade,” Rhodey says. Peter’s mouth falls open, because he wasn’t expecting that - that’s _young_. The implications of it wash over him as Rhodey talks: he carried this friendship for decades, almost his entire life, and suddenly it’s not possible anymore.

“It was the first day of second grade and all of us kids were pretty much experts on how to start the school year by then. We’d dealt with the first day of first grade, we knew what we were doing, you know? Except this one kid who looked terrified and ready to bolt at any moment. I learned after he’d never even gone through first grade, he’d been pushed ahead. Having a full day of school was totally new to him. When the person who dropped him off left - I don’t think it was even his parents, it had to have been Jarvis - he was… I don’t know. It’s hard to remember that. But he didn’t look like he belonged.

“The teacher put us next to each other in her seating plan. You could tell he wasn’t used to a desk. We had to do one of those bullshit early grade school assignments, something about what we were most passionate about or what we wanted to be when we grew up… I don’t remember, but I do remember I said I liked planes.

“And that’s when this kid pipes up, his family has a plane. That completely blew seven-year-old me’s mind. I had to see it. I asked him if I could come over. He was thrown off by that, like, did I want to come over to his house? Yeah, I did. And this had never happened to him before - I learned later that he acted out constantly in kindergarten, that of course he was skipped ahead, he was bored as hell - and had never actually spent time with a kid his own age.

“So I started going to this kid’s house. And he started coming over to mine. This happened the entire school year. I don’t know how our parents actually felt about it, but Tony and I were inseparable. Like yeah, the plane was cool, but playing together was way more fun. We built our own plane together. More like a drone, actually. It was his idea and he was the one who knew how to do it but I helped, and he’d never had that before.”

Peter sucks in a breath, quiet but empathy crashing into him like a massive wave. He thinks back on his own first school days, when he was that kid with the dead parents left to stand in the doorway, in the corner, not sure what to do until one kid - Ned - had come up to him and declared them friends. And of course he talked to his other classmates, played with them, but Ned was the only one he ever sought out, and vice versa.

He stuffs down that silly compulsion to voice this, that way of saying, “I understand, but now this is about me,” because he doesn’t want this to be about him. Instead he just tries to picture a small Tony Stark, sequestering himself off from everyone else like he had, until fate had intervened with a friend.

And absentmindedly, not even registering on a conscious level, Peter wonders how Ned would react if he was gone, their friendship ended prematurely - but not yet without the decades attached.

Instead, Peter asks, “Did it stay that way? Was it always just you two?” It’s kind of been like that for him and Ned. Though Ned just had Betty. And MJ’s in the group now. Kind of like… a feature of growing up. Expanding the social circle.

“Yes and no,” Rhodey says. “We had fun, but Tony still kept stirring up shit in school. He was still bored, the teachers figured. So the next school year they had him skip a grade again. We still had recess… At least until Tony was jumped to a different school. He kept skipping grades and I didn’t.

“I don’t know if he ever made friends with other kids way older than him, I just know he kept coming back to me every chance we got. Recess, weekends, summer. He’d always ask me, ‘When are you catching up?’

“And I’d just have to say, ‘I’m trying,’ and I don’t know if it was because we were young or not thinking about it, but I think we both thought I would eventually.

“At least until high school. By the time I got there Tony was almost ready to graduate. That was…” Rhodey trails off, and Peter looks at his expression. Really looks at it. He’s been paying attention, enraptured, learning the personal history of one of the greatest heroes the world was ever going to know and few were ever going to actually know of, but the way Rhodey suddenly stops cold shakes him, because there’s something else there, something that makes Peter think he just intruded way too far.

_They were best friends their entire lives and now one’s dead and you’re making the living one recount it,_ he thinks.

No, that’s not the problem.

_Did you love him?_ Peter wants to ask. _Did he love you?_

“I’m sorry,” he says instead. “We can stop. I have no right—“

Rhodey shakes his head and Peter stops talking. “It’s okay,” he says, voice slipping from strained to even. “That was just a tough time. For both of us. We would have been… about your age. A little younger, probably. And I think that was the first time we realized I was never going to catch up. He was about to move away for university and I still had four years of high school ahead of me, and that was it.”

Peter thinks on that. His age, a little younger. He thinks there’s a chance he leaves Ned at this stage of their lives, possibly forever, due to circumstances beyond his control. He knows it feels horrible. And Mr. Stark had lived it, too; maybe felt the exact same things he’s feeling, almost. It’s… not a comforting thought. It just makes his gut hurt, really. _None of this is fair._

“We still talked,” Rhodey says, restoring Peter’s focus, “but a phone call isn’t the same as spending time together, building stuff together. A couple of times contact almost completely died out, but then one of us would spontaneously reignite it. Tony drunk dialling me when he was stressed about living away from home. Me calling him when I was stressed about exams. Both of us under that sense of loneliness. We stopped talking but we never really stopped.”

“But you met up together again,” Peter says. He thinks: _I don’t want to drift apart from Ned. I don’t want to lose MJ after a year._ The realities of moving on with life, always progressing to that next step, sometimes without the people you’ve always known hadn’t really been a concern before. Probably would have been this upcoming year anyway, but now everything’s kicked into overdrive; he isn’t even sure if he’ll be able to go back at all.

Rhodey seems to sense what he’s thinking. “Yeah,” he says. “It was unusual. Most kids… There aren’t many Tonys in the world. But maybe that’s part of what helped our friendship stay as strong as it did. Tony had so few people in his life he could actually trust, and that hurt him. That we grew up so close despite the odds… I think it helped. He knew he had someone else to turn to. Especially when things got bad.”

“What do you mean?” Peter asks.

Rhodey looks away for a second. Peter can see the internal debate playing in his head, sees it settled with a shrug; Tony’s gone and this is the kid he trusted everything with. “How much did you know, about the fight in Germany?”

“I know about the Accords,” Peter says. Thinks: _Should I have signed them? Would any of this have ever been an issue if I had? Why didn’t Mr. Stark make me?_ “That’s what it was about, yeah?”

“Yes and no,” Rhodey says, and Peter can see the way he decides to dismiss a whole other line of explanation, apparently satisfied enough with what Peter knows. “It was also about accountability. I’ve always been above board, obviously. Tony was most of the time, too. There was actually a moment really early in his Iron Man days I had to call off a strike on him, nobodyknew what the suit was…”

Peter falls silent as Rhodey trails off, lets him inhabit the memory, enjoy the slight smirk that’s found its way on his face. He’d debated with himself throughout the day, if it was the right thing to do, to ask Rhodey to have this talk with him. If it was fair. And he knows he doesn’t need to know everything, that some things are for just Rhodey to reminisce about, and he’s not going to interrupt those moments.

“Anyway,” Rhodey picks up again just a beat later, “things did get bad. Being forced to grow up faster than he was capable of did its damage. You take a fourteen-year-old, put him in a university environment, leave him with a ton of free time because the coursework still isn’t challenging enough… I said before he would drunk dial me. We weren’t old enough to drink. He did it a lot. He got by, but it planted the seeds for destructive habits.

“Especially when his parents died. That I remember. I was just starting at MIT; he’d graduated already. He really had nothing to do but wallow and Obie— Stane— The guy who was in charge of his dad’s company in the interim, he didn’t know what to do with this mess of a kid. Or maybe, in hindsight, he didn’t want to even try. I took a semester off to make sure he didn’t kill himself.” Rhodey shrugs, like it’s just something someone says, a statement of fact, a comment on the weather.

Peter gawks because it was _Mr. Stark_ and that wasn’t the sort of person _Mr. Stark_ was. Not Iron Man, not the person who looked out for him, who made sure he was safe, who told him off when he got too quippy and had finally given him that hug when he had come back—

No, that was a shaken man, someone entirely human. Like seeing your teacher out in the wild and realizing they have a whole life of their own, only on a significantly higher scale, one he can barely comprehend.

Rhodey takes note of his reaction. “I didn’t mean he was going to do anything intentionally. He wasn’t in that kind of headspace. But when things got to the point Tony couldn’t handle - when his parents died, when he thought he was dying, after the Battle of New York, after Titan - he got self-destructive. He would have ended up dying if he didn’t have people looking out for him.” That’s when Rhodey gives Peter a _look_ , not an accusatory one, not something meant to shame him, but something so rawly empathetic it makes Peter want to sink into the couch cushions and beyond. His stomach drops. He lowers his eyes.

_I don’t think I’m like that,_ he thinks, doesn’t dare say. _But I guess part of it is not knowing until someone tells you?_

Peter stares at his hands. He doesn’t wear armour, he has web shooters. They’re very, very different.

“Did Mr. Stark... know?” he asks. He doesn’t really know what he means by the question, but Rhodey seems to be able to pick up on something.

“That he had people who cared about him? Yeah, eventually he figured it out. But it took a lot of persistence. It’s hard, but it’s always worth it. We fought a lot after his parents died. I moved in with him and we fought pretty much every day, and I’m happy we did because it gave us the chance to keep going. We didn’t fight that much after Titan and that scared me, but he had Pepper and then he had a kid and… And I think he found a way to make peace with things.

“Tony didn’t really fail that often. But he did after Titan. The world ended but it also didn’t. I think that was the first time - at least since he became Iron Man - that he realized not everything depended on him. He thought he had a lot to atone for. And really, he did. I do, too; I mean, look at who I work for. But he was born into weapons manufacturing but he continued it. He saw firsthand what that meant and that changed him, mostly for the better, in one way for the worse because he could never give himself a moment’s peace. You remember when Pepper told him he could rest… That’s what she meant.

“We’re not in that situation right now. Hopefully we never will be again. But one of my greatest regrets with Tony is that I couldn’t help him reach that point when he was still alive. I know that’s not my fault but I’m sure you’ve realized recently that we can all be irrational when it comes to things like this. But some things will just never be in our control. We won’t always get the end we want for ourselves or our friends.”

Peter nods, to show he’s heard, but he can’t think of how to follow things up. 

On some level, though, he knew this was going to be about him. He didn’t know that much about Mr. Stark before he came into his life but there had to be a reason he came to Peter. Beyond seeing him on YouTube, beyond wanting help at an airport in Germany. 

He finds himself almost uncomfortable with how closely he can relate to some of what Rhodey is telling him. He worries at his lip, looks away again, looks back up.

“Do I remind you of him, at all?” Peter asks.

“A little, yeah,” Rhodey says. “Of a lot of the good stuff.”

“Is that why you’re helping me out? Not just speaking up for me, but giving me a place to live, somewhere private… Is that why?”

Rhodey exhales, blowing air through his lips. “At first it was because it’s what he would have done, but he isn’t here to do it. That was just my first decision. Now I know it was the right call because you’re a good kid and you need the right people in your corner. This shouldn’t have happened and we’re still going to make it right.”

“Sure,” Peter says, but his mind is jumping to a different topic. That he wouldn’t have been in this situation at all if it wasn’t for EDITH. If, ultimately, Mr. Stark had never left him that parting gift that he very quickly identified he wasn’t good enough - or maybe just not ready, if he’s being optimistic - for. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Yeah.”

“Why me? If I remind you of Mr. Stark then I probably reminded him too, right? I remember one time he told me he wanted me to be better than him but… He was Tony Stark, he was Iron Man, how is a kid supposed to top that? Why… what…” He can’t figure out how to word this. He’s going to feel bad about saying it no matter what, but. It’s one last thing he has to know. One last flaw to uncover, maybe. “What was he thinking?”

Rhodey hesitates for a moment, like he actually does have an answer for a dead man, and he just needs a second to find it. Though if they really were that close - and Peter has to think they were, maybe even closer - then he figures maybe Rhodey actually can speak for the dead.

“Two things,” he starts. “First, he had an abnormal childhood. Not like the one you’re living right now - he made his own choice to start this superhero stuff, and as an adult he was prepared to handle its consequences - but still something that warped his perceptions. He had to grow up fast, and he thought he succeeded. He didn’t, but he thought he did. So he sees someone like you, and you remind him of him but even more prepared at a younger age, and the first thing he thinks is, ‘He can handle it.’ Sometimes when you grow up you forget what it was like to be a kid, all the problems you can brush away now would have been much more impactful back then and you forget that. So Tony saw you and thought, yeah, he’s got this, and he couldn’t see any evidence to prove him wrong.

“The second thing is I think you reminded him of Steve Rogers.”

Peter’s mind blanks at that.

“Captain America,” he eventually says.

“Yeah,” Rhodey says. “They had a… different relationship. Tony’s dad knew him during World War II. Spent a lot of time trying to find him after he went in the ice, even though he had his own kid to look after. Tony had his problems with his dad, but he also grew up always hearing about how amazing Steve Rogers was. So when they met and didn’t always see eye to eye - you remember fighting against him - it was complicated.

“But I don’t think Tony ever let go of that idealistic view, not really. Definitely not when he’d had the chance to get to know Steve better. They did get along. They were friends. Just maybe not in the traditional sort of way, like you’d think with your own friends. I think there was always a striving for one to make the other better and that’s how they got along.

“Tony and I didn’t talk about you a lot, but from what I picked up, and from what I know about Tony: I think he saw you. He met you. He talked to you. And he thought he saw the best of himself in you. But he told you he wanted you to be better than him because he knew the worst parts of himself really intimately, and instead of that in you, he saw the best parts of Steve. So he would have thought: ‘This kid has the potential to be the best of us all.’ Where they couldn’t get along, he saw it all in one place with you. And I think that’s why he showed such unrestrained trust almost immediately: because once Tony found an idea like that, he wasn’t letting go of it.”

Peter tries to take a deep breath; nearly stops inhaling for a second. Rhodey continues, snapping his fingers in front of Peter’s face, immediately drawing his attention back to him, eye contact shared and a guarantee he’s listening. “Hey. Hey. Remember everything from before. Tony was flawed. He was my best friend, but he was highly, highly flawed. I think he was right to believe in you and I think he was wrong to do it so quickly. I think he forgot not everyone operated like him. And I think, over the course of his lifetime, for as long as he knew you, it worked out. I also know there’s a lot more to come and a lot of it’s going to be good, but a lot of it is going to be bad.

“So I need you to remember something. That he was human. That you’re human. He made mistakes and you’re going to keep on making them. But rarely do you go from point A to point B in a straight line. He certainly didn’t, I don’t, and you won’t, either.

“You hold on to his faith in you, because that was special. But you remember there’s still a lot more to you. The best hasn’t come yet. He won’t see it. It may take a while. But you let it come at its own pace: that’s how it comes. And when you’re older and thinking back on your younger years, you’ll know where he was coming from. Just… try to enjoy as much of the ride as you can along the way.”

Rhodey claps Peter on the back at that, a punctuation mark. It’s soft but it’s final.

Peter can feel the tears start to well up again. He rubs at his eyes and nods, almost going to lean in to Rhodey and straightening himself up at the last moment, like he was just swaying instead. “Okay,” he says. “Thanks.”

He goes to stand up, the only instance in which he’s ever really had height on Rhodey. Looking down is a whole other perspective, and suddenly, with his head at a higher level, he can feel the emotional exhaustion in the air, weighing everything else down. He rubs at his eyes again.

“Rhodey?” he asks from above. Rhodey looks up at him. Peter can’t read his expression, but it’s far away. He doesn’t know if that’s good or bad. _Maybe it’s both._ “You didn’t have to… Thanks. For sharing him with me.”

“Sure thing, kid,” Rhodey says, and Peter swears it holds the exact same cadence as Mr. Stark’s voice did.


	7. Option A

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The "it gets worse before it gets better" tag really kicks in now. For quite a while, probably, actually. I hope the buildup was adequate.

_This is it. This is your last chance._

_Shut up. I know._ **_I know._ **

But still, Peter can’t find his voice.

He can find his regular voice. He can talk to Sam with startling ease. It unnerves him, considering. When once the words had gotten lodged in his throat now they barely even form, they die an early death inside his gut, acid jumping up to dissolve them before they can float up from diaphragm to lips, and that’s not how speech works _at all_ but unformed words can’t literally dissolve in acid and yet here he is.

Every other word flows beautifully, though, like when he’s cruising through a math test or he’s swinging the perfect arc through the air. Peter can talk to Sam about calling his aunt and his friends and how amazingly it all went. It hadn’t been perfect - there had been negative emotions aired - but that’s healthy, Sam tells him. That’s best for both parties. He should keep this up, if he and they can. 

Peter agrees. Everyone’s open to it, he instinctually knows. Everyone misses him. He’d heard a lot of things he’d needed to hear. Maybe they had in turn, too.

(He doesn’t tell Sam about his conversation with Rhodey. There’s an unspoken understanding, there: that was just for the two of them. That crossed a line. It wasn’t something he needed to get better; he intruded in on someone else’s space. He took up someone else’s oxygen. It had been a willing exchange, but it had been _personal_. Rhodey had shared a part of himself with Peter and Peter’s pretty damn sure it’s not a part he’s going to open up again, possibly ever.)

Sam tells him he suspected as much would happen. “There are some things I just won’t be able to give you,” he says. “That most in my position never will. You can’t rely on just one person. The good news is you’ve got those other people already in your life.”

“But what if they get hurt?” Peter asks. “How do I stop that from happening?”

“Sometimes, you don’t,” Sam tells him. Peter thinks back to London; to Mr. Stark dying; to watching Aunt May from behind the door to his room when she didn’t know he was there, quietly crying as she looked over funeral expenses at their kitchen table. “We can’t control everything. The people you love could get hurt just by walking down the sidewalk one day, nothing to do with you. It’s just a part of life.”

“But my life, specifically—“ Peter starts.

Sam holds up a hand. “Peter,” he says, “yes, there’s added risk. But you made a choice to step into this. Your brain is still developing, the consequences of that choice aren’t fully realized yet, but it’s still one you made. I think you did it because, at the core of your being, you knew it was one you had to make. For you, it was the right thing to do.

“It’s too late to go back now, so look forward. Do what you can for the people you love and they’ll do what they can for you. Sometimes they will get hurt. You can’t save everybody. That’s life. But what you can control is how much you try. And for you, you’ll probably try a lot, because that’s who you are. That’s a good thing.

“You listen to yourself - not necessarily everything and everyone around you, but you, yourself - and you do what you know is right for you. It’s already led you to great things, so keep following that path.”

Peter nods, and considers his options. That seed he’d planted in his mind has sprouted and grown, and now, as he looks up at the tree it’s turning into, already taller than him, he needs to make a decision on what to do with it.

It won’t work if he tells someone. If it doesn’t work, he might be doomed. If it does work, he might be doomed.

There are two different things he can say now. Peter shuts off his brain and lets whatever words that form float up; lets a subconscious instinct make the choice for him.

“I think I’m ready to switch over to weekly sessions,” he says.

_Okay,_ he thinks as he hears the sentence leave his mouth. A relief washes over him. This is it. This is the direction he’s going in. _I can work with this. I’ll have to._

“Yeah?” Sam asks, curious.

“Yeah,” Peter says, and now his brain’s back online and it’s easy. It’s so easy to get the words out. “When Rhodey called you it was a crisis, right? I know it was. I couldn’t function. You came over and I can now. I know it’s only been three sessions, but I can live day-to-day. It’s not an emergency anymore. I know I still need help, but I’m not questioning reality anymore. I’m eating and sleeping right. I’m better. I know I’m not cured, but I’m _better_. So it doesn’t make sense to keep doing every other day. Right?”

Sam nods. “You’ve thought this through?”

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” Sam says. “That would be the preferred ideal, and it probably is what’s best for you now. If you like it, I like it. When do you want to pick up again: in exactly a week, or a little sooner? What day do you want to be yours?”

Peter mulls it over. “In half a week?” he asks. “Four days? It’s Friday, so… Tuesdays?”

“Tuesdays it is,” Sam nods. Peter smiles gratefully, and feels ready.

* * *

“Why didn’t you tell him?” Quentin asks.

Peter’s head whips over to look in his direction, but he doesn’t stop pacing. He advances back and forth across the carpet in what’s become his room, frantically working a groove in. It was so easy to feel at peace the moment he’d made a decision, but now that he has time - several hours, really - to second guess himself, anxiety is starting to settle back in.

That Quentin is actually trying to alleviate it adds to both his certainty and stress. It isn’t a mocking question, it isn’t accusatory, it’s sincere and concerned and the last thing Peter wants to think about if he’s really going to do this.

“You know why,” Peter says. Rhodey is still a few hours from returning home. Peter’s already done the bulk of dinner prep and now everything’s just a waiting game, for things to cook, for nightfall to come.

“You need to say it,” Quentin tells him. “You need to make it real.”

_Because nobody else is ever going to understand!_ Peter explodes, mentally, knowing Quentin can full well hear him from inside his mind but cognizant of the fact that he’s still in an apartment building and if he starts yelling - and oh, he’ll start yelling - that will attract attention. _I can’t just get help for this! Not this!_

“Sam helped me,” Peter switches to speech, chest heaving as though he’d actually been yelling, able to get his voice back under control. “I got the help I needed. I know what’s real and what’s not, at least now, and I can work with that.”

_But he can’t help me with the other stuff,_ Peter goes back to thinking, volume rising in his mind with each word. _How do you describe to someone how you know for a fact something wasn’t real, but it still consumes you? I knew MJ wasn’t actually there but I didn’t_ ** _know_** _so I dove into the ground. I tried to grab Mysterio and I almost pulled a crane down on top of myself. I_ ** _knew_** _but I didn’t_ ** _know_** _. How am I supposed to describe that? To someone else? Who wasn’t there?_

“I just, I take in so— I take in so much— My eyes, my brain, my senses, _everything_ is there, _everything_ ,” _and sometimes it’s hard to filter out, and I get overwhelmed, I can’t deal with all the input and he bombarded me, he assaulted me, everything kept changing around so fast, there were so many lights, so many colours, and there were things on top of me, and then there weren’t, and it got quiet and then Mr. Stark and I know it wasn’t actually,_ “Rhodey told me, he told me, I know so much more about him now, I know it’s not my fault” _he died, and he wasn’t perfect, and there’s no zombie and he wouldn’t attack me he did so much for me he wouldn’t do that to me, so how do I explain these things that I know for a fact but also can’t shake from my brain? They were real. They weren’t real but they were_ ** _real_** _and nobody else has ever experienced—_

“It was personally catered towards me,” Peter says, stopping and just dropping down to the floor, falling hard to sit upright, hands twisting violently over one another. “He… He knew what he was doing and it was all geared towards _me_. It wasn’t some big attack or scene he wanted to cause, there weren’t any explosions, there was no damage - it was all geared towards me. Everything he could think of to break me. He researched. He had to have. He found as much as he could on me and he weaponized my past, my experiences, my feelings. 

“And maybe it wasn’t real but it’s wormed itself so deep in my brain you’re here,” Peter says, pointing a finger at Quentin. He lets his arm drop unceremoniously. “So now it’s real, for me. But you actually aren’t, and that’s the problem. That’s why. That’s why I’m going to him.”

There. He said it out loud. It’s real too, now. “I’m going to Quentin Beck. That’s how I fix all of this.”

“He’s dead,” Quentin tells him.

“No, he isn’t,” Peter shakes his head. “I know he isn’t. In the last dream he told me. When I woke up you told me. And I just _know_.”

“He’s dangerous,” Quentin tries. “You’ll be going right into the lion’s den.”

“It couldn’t get any worse for me,” Peter says. “Think about it: it’s two birds with one stone. If I go to him, I get rid of you. If I’m with him, I don’t need you. You told me you’re here because some part of me wants you with me; I can get rid of the hallucinations, once and for all, if I replace you with him.”

“You won’t know if you’re getting rid of the hallucinations. Not if you’re with him.”

“I will,” Peter says. “I can trust him more than I can trust my own brain at this point. I can _fight_ him more than I can fight myself, if I have to.

“Why are you trying to convince me not to go? I made my decision. I could have told Sam I was seeing you. Instead I told him I wanted to see him less. I’m not turning back from that now.”

Quentin is looking at him like he’s lost his mind. Maybe he has, especially if his hallucination of the man who tried to murder him is judging him. “Don’t talk like that. You haven’t committed to anything yet.”

Oh, but Peter has. The more he reasons it out, emotions back under control after that brief flare up, the more at peace he feels, like he had when he first made his choice. He makes his argument out loud and can’t find flaw.

“Then there’s the second bird,” Peter says. “I get rid of you, and I find the one other person who could possibly understand. Sam will never get it, Rhodey will never get it, Aunt May, my friends, but the one who unleashed it on me to begin with - Mr. Beck - he’ll know what he did. He’ll get it.

“So I get rid of you, and I gain understanding. That’s… I need that. And he is the only person on the planet who can give that to me now.”

Quentin shakes his head. “This is a bad idea,” he says. “You’re insane.”

Peter stands up, shrugging. “Yeah.”

Then he lunges for his phone, throwing off even Quentin, who steps away so quickly he falls back on the bed. Peter grabs his phone from the corner of the desk, ripping it from the charging cord it had still been connected to, and falls over on his back on the ground in one near-fluid motion. He turns it on and waits, legs still sticking up in the air, both hands holding onto the device in what would be a death grip for an ordinary human but is merely a tense hold for him.

“What are you doing,” Quentin asks, but it’s not really a question. “You can’t use your phone—“

“I can’t,” Peter says, unlocking it as the screen flickers to life and immediately going for the VPN. He turns it on. Netherlands. Ha. “But I need to do research.”

He opens up one of the search engines MJ told him about that he’d written down and searches Quentin Beck. There’s… a lot of scrolling. A lot. He can’t filter through to back to before he even went to Europe, and he still wants to avoid news stories, for the most part. What Ned had told him had been fine, but he knows there’s a whole other side that will probably send him spiralling off further, and he can’t afford that.

He doesn’t want to read about how Spider-Man is actually a threat to everyone - not when he’s figuring out how to join the actual threat.

Peter sits back up and scrolls and scrolls, and two instances actually pique his interest.

The first is a reference to Stark Industries. _He worked there,_ Peter realizes, looking up at his version of Quentin as though he has any of the answers. He just shakes his head at him, either confirming he knows nothing or still trying to tell Peter not to do what he’s doing. Maybe both. Peter ignores him and goes back to looking at the link. _Maybe he knew Mr. Stark._

That thought sends his heart soaring a little, like it’s confirmation he’s on the right path. It can’t be a coincidence, right? 

_But when he was messing with me—_ And he still can’t quite shake that image of Mr. Stark coming after him, though it’s somewhat dulled after his talk with Rhodey. Clinical.

_He was just messing with you. The whole world knew Spider-Man and Iron Man were friends. That was only about you, remember? And it worked._

It’s a sign, Peter settles on. None of the technology of what Mr. Beck had been working on with Mr. Stark’s company really rings a bell with him; holograms make sense, considering, but that’s about as far as he gets before turning back to the depths of his search.

The second thing that grabs at him is an IMDB page, and that’s when everything suddenly clicks. It’s brief, and the entries are older, like they’ve all been abandoned, but visual and special effects are there all the same.

Both were buried. Peter makes no note of it. A lot has happened as of late and there was a lot to go through. What he’s found is old information, nothing that would really interest anyone considering the show Mr. Beck had just been conducting, continued behind the scenes to turn his life upside down.

A distant thought flickers in the recesses of his brain: would he have had a mental breakdown if his identity had never been revealed publicly? If yes, how different would that have been if he could have had it while still living with his aunt, his friends within easy reach, and not making him an unwanted celebrity in the process?

He dismisses it with barely a glance, focused on the overall picture: “He wouldn’t stay in Europe. And that wasn’t the only place he targeted. But he’s from here. He’d want to come back to America if he was going to hide.” Because home is comforting, he knows this. “Hollywood. I can’t go to New York, but I can go to L.A.”

“That doesn’t make any sense,” Quentin says. Peter looks up from his phone to find Quentin standing over him, looking like he’d be a parent scolding him if he weren’t a hallucination and Peter hadn’t just found a new power over it by discovering a way to get rid of him. “Why would he be hiding somewhere convenient for you?”

“Because I’m supposed to go to him,” Peter says, sincere. “I have a… I have a feeling about it. It just feels right.”

“And how is L.A. more convenient for you than New York? Crossing the continent is convenient?”

“No,” Peter concedes. “But it’s doable. I can hitch rides. Hide on top of trains, sneak into the backs of buses. I’ll have to coordinate but I can do it.”

“And what if you go through all of this effort and there’s nothing there?” Quentin asks, crossing his arms and looking down at Peter.

_It’s a challenge now,_ he thinks.

Peter mulls it over before that final piece clicks into place for him and settles his mind, once and for all, that he is, without a doubt, doing what he needs to do.

“Malibu,” he says.

“What?” Quentin asks.

“Malibu,” Peter repeats, standing back up. He leaves his room. Still alone in the apartment, he feels comfortable talking to himself as he moves along to the front hallway closet and digs around in its shadows for something he can use. “That’s where Mr. Stark used to live. If worst comes to worst, I can go there. Like… like a pilgrimage. That alone would be worth it.”

He finds it: a plain black drawstring bag, covered in dust and completely neglected. It won’t be missed. Peter blows on it to clear the dust away and sneezes as it comes back into his face. He opens it up to find it empty and sticks a hand in, lightly punching it from the inside out. It’s sturdy enough, too.

“How would you even come back?”

Peter looks up at Quentin, who’s followed him out into the hallway. He leans at a wall against its edge. Peter makes eye contact, then sneezes again.

_Maybe I won’t,_ he thinks.

He lowers his eyes from Quentin’s immediately and makes his way to the bathroom instead, going to wash the bag out. He’ll have several hours for it to dry off. It’s waterproof, anyway. “I’ll figure that out when I have to,” he says instead.

This doesn’t have to be permanent. But. If his presence is just going to hurt his friends and family, and if Mr. Beck really is the only one who can understand what he’s going through, then maybe—

He has to play dead now, anyway. Peter knows he didn’t have any qualms about innocent people dying. Clearly. But he can’t be trying to kill anyone when he has to lay low. _Shit, maybe I could even stop him from trying to hurt anyone else again,_ Peter thinks. _Maybe if I’m there he won’t go down that path again._

And besides, Peter’s mind keeps blinking back to the bar in Prague. When he was turning the glasses over. Before he did. It had been… so… nice.

(Mr. Beck had been friendlier to him than Mr. Stark had at first, too, Peter realizes. Both had admonished him for some of his childish actions but only one person had yelled at him. And maybe it was all fake, always, but before he got hit by a train Mr. Beck had apologized and…)

Peter turns the sink off, turns the bag upside down to empty it out. Gives it a little shake. Bits of water droplets go flying, but between the bag’s texture and the amount of time he still has he’s comfortable with taking it back to his room and letting it drip dry.

“I’m getting rid of you,” Peter says, turning around and walking backwards to face Quentin, “and I’m going to the one person I can be open with. It’s happening. I’m taking charge. It’s happening.”


	8. Cross Country

Peter wakes up from his nap. He’d plugged his phone back in and set an alarm for a few minutes before he estimated Rhodey might be returning home and settled down for as much time as he thought he could afford himself. Sleep is imperative but he won’t be getting much of it tonight, might not for the next little while.

He’s annoyed at Quentin for trying to poke holes in his plan but grateful at the same time, because he’ll need to find ways to overcome all of those doubts and fears for it to work. Crossing the country as a wanted fugitive will be a problem. If he’s hitching rides he’ll probably need to stay awake. It’s not ideal but it’s not like there’s any easier way.

He gets up, slowly, methodically. He shuts the alarm off, checks his battery is at 100%, then turns his phone back off and unplugs it. He removes the charging brick from the outlet and places it back on top of the desk. He’s not going to steal from Rhodey - not something he’d actually miss, anyway.

Peter glances back at the pile of folded clothes in the corner. They’re all older. It’s been two weeks and not a word. Those he’s safe to take, he figures.

He moves over to where he’d left the bag hanging off a hook on the door. Still a little damp, but he’ll be fine to pack in a couple of hours. He needs Rhodey to be fast asleep before he even starts to go anywhere, anyway, and that’ll probably take longer than the time for it to dry properly.

He pads his way out to the kitchen, looking into the crockpot he’d left out, turning to the fridge to extract whatever else for heating up in the microwave. As he watches it spin he thinks to himself, _This is going to be it for a while._ He’s not really going to have anything for eating options until he gets to Malibu - until he finds Mr. Beck - and even then.

Peter is prepared for that, though. He can go without eating for a day or two. It’s sleep that has him far more worried.

His eyes widen as he hears the front door open. He leans back against the island top, still watching the microwave but suddenly relaxed, a little in awe of how increasingly easy it seems to be to just lie. Even his body language is going with it.

“Smells good,” Rhodey comments behind him, and that’s when Peter lets himself turn around to face him, easy smile on his face.

“Thanks,” he says. No waver to his voice. It’s just him, and everything is normal.

“Oh, before I forget!” And he’s up proper, big strides back to his room, snatching the phone charger off the desk and making his way back to Rhodey just as the microwave goes off and he’s taking the lid off the crockpot and inspecting its contents. “Here,” Peter says, tapping Rhodey on the shoulder with one hand, charging brick resting in his other palm, cord dangling from his hand. 

Rhodey blinks. “You don’t need it anymore?”

Peter shrugs. “Nah. I wrote my friends’ numbers down and that’s all I really wanted off my phone. It’s fine now, I shouldn’t be using it anyway.”

“Alright,” Rhodey says, taking it, but he just sets it further down the counter, near where there’s a knife block and another outlet. For a second Peter’s heart skips a beat, convinced that something leaked through and Rhodey _knows_ , and a part of him is terrified but a part of him is also thrilled at the prospect, but then Rhodey turns his attention to opening the microwave and Peter turns to grab bowls and it’s fine.

“Hungry?” Rhodey teases as Peter loads up his bowl straight out of the crockpot.

“Starving,” Peter replies, grinning. He’s going to be too focused over the next few days to really be able to pay attention to any hunger pangs, anyway.

* * *

Peter actually does fall back asleep pretty easily. He wakes up just as easily, too, when his watch goes off at one in the morning.

He sits up and listens, hearing nothing through the expanse of the apartment. Then he gets up, hyper aware of every sound he could be making, and goes for his phone, turning it and the VPN back on, looking for possible route options. 

His heart rate picks up as some facts of the matter start to sink in: this will probably take at least three days, and that’s assuming he doesn’t do something like miss a connection or get caught. The longer it takes, the more likely he is to screw up. And that there will, of course, be transfers.

“Chicago, Atlanta, Pittsburgh, Dallas,” he mutters to himself, staring intensely at the dimly lit screen, listing off major cities he’d have to pass through, transfer at, depending on the route he chooses. 

He settles on Pittsburgh because that seems to lead to the most straight forward path, realizes he knows nothing about Pittsburgh, realizes he knows nothing about any of the cities, really, and feels a shortness of breath.

“Almost like this is a bad idea,” Quentin chimes in. He’s on the bed that Peter’s vacated, hands creating a pillow behind his head, propped up against the wall.

“I can do it,” Peter says. “I’ve faced way worse.” He has, and that realization, saying it out loud, helps calm things down, return the world a bit to normal. He can find a way to transfer buses undetected. It should be easy compared to what he’s done in the past.

Quentin snorts as Peter screenshots every step of the journey he possibly can, then goes back and captures alternative routes. He looks back and, satisfied, and refuses to consider that one missed detail could mean life or death.

The screen’s light stays low. His battery is still in the 90s. Peter turns his phone back off and stands there, dumbly, holding it loose in one hand and staring ahead at nothing, like he’s forgotten what comes next.

“You go back to sleep,” Quentin says.

Peter shakes his head. “Not tired,” he replies, and it’s true - he’s napped so much throughout the day he’s wide awake now. Will have to stay up at least another ten or twelve hours, probably, until he gets to Pittsburgh and can find the new bus he’ll have to switch to. The first leg is a short enough trip he figures he won’t want to fall asleep during it - not if he could accidentally miss his stop.

Onward, then. Peter retrieves the bag he’d cleaned off earlier, freshly dry. He goes back to the corner he’d folded the extra clothes in. Stares down at them contemplatively. Turns back to the desk, where he still has his one page with Ned and MJ’s numbers on it, plus MJ’s list of technological security measures. He folds that up first and puts it in the bag, then lays out all of the clothes he has at his disposal.

Hitches a breath when, at the bottom, he finds his suit again. Faces a dilemma: it’s inherently useful, absurdly so, but it’s also now an extreme liability. Sure, his actual face is out there now, but Spider-Man is infinitely more recognizable than Peter Parker. Infinitely. Will always be that way.

“That’s how you get caught,” Quentin advises.

Peter shakes his head again in response. “I can’t just leave it here.”

He tries to picture how he’ll look on a bus - clinging to the roof or side of something driving down the highway isn’t really an option, he’s almost certainly going to have to be a passenger or hiding somewhere else but he has no money and can’t exactly show his face, anyway - and frowns.

Then he strips and puts the suit on, anyway. It’s not like he even has normal shoes. He’d have to at least wear a part of it.

He foregoes the gloves and the mask and starts packing the clothes he has. Space is limited; so are his contents. The folded paper jostles underneath.

Peter stops at the oversized hoodie he’s now in possession of: dark grey, not too thick but bulky enough. He puts it on, looks down as it falls to maybe a third of the way to his knees, shrugs to make it settle and puts his hands in its open front pocket.

Peter quietly pads his way over to the bathroom and takes a look. It’s not too bad - he can just roll up the sleeves of his spider-suit, leave only pale white arms showing if he wants to roll up the hoodie’s sleeves, too. He feels silly, suit clinging to his legs while his upper body gets dwarfed and wearing material not even remotely appropriate for summer, but. There’ll be air conditioning. So.

He cocks his head at his mussed up hair, then pulls the hood up. It goes nearly over his eyes. If he stands up straight and holds his head high it fits almost properly. If he slouches then he’s just some kid.

Perfect.

Peter pauses again, listening for any sign that Rhodey could be awake. Nothing. He looks at his watch. It’s approaching two. He needs to get going.

He slinks his way back to what was once his room and finishes packing the bag. He sets his phone inside the mask and puts it in on top of the clothes, then the gloves. He’s wearing the web shooters again, but they’ll just look like bracelets dwarfed in shadows. There’s stealth and then there’s just not being prepared at all, and he has to make the compromise on this one.

Peter takes a look around, draws the bag to a close and slings it over his shoulders. Then he takes one last look at what had been his bed for two weeks, where Quentin is now sitting up, staring at him intently. He almost wants to flinch under the gaze but holds his ground, even if it does very little because, well, he knows Quentin knows and feels everything he does.

Quentin’s wearing his own hoodie now, except it’s properly fitting and white. Peter imagines it getting dirty. Wonders how grimy things are really going to get. Wonders why it’s white.

“You coming?” Peter asks.

“You know this isn’t how you get rid of me,” Quentin says. “You know getting rid of me might not even be a good idea.”

“You saying that tells me I’m doing exactly the right thing,” Peter says, turning on his heel. He steps out, shutting the door behind him with a soft click.

When he turns back out to move forward, the apartment looks like an endless expanse, a sudden, unfathomable distance to cross. Peter blinks and feels his stomach sink. He’s leaving physical stability and safety for… he could die.

_But at least it would be over. He wouldn’t have power over me anymore._

Peter swallows, straightens, and strides forward. The living room isn’t that big. The balcony door is easy enough to open. To shut it behind him. To look out into a DC neighbourhood he doesn’t know, night sky dark, only the brightest stars visible, leafy tree branches waving at him in the breeze.

“That’s right,” Quentin says, a presence suddenly speaking directly into his ear, and Peter jerks backwards slightly, “the last time you thought you were outside the street turned into an endless stretch, you stepped on broken glass, there was smoke and fog and the bodies of your dead relatives…”

Peter’s foot suddenly throbs, a phantom pain reminiscent of when he spent a hellish night thinking he had really cut himself, unable to shed it until he had talked to Sam. There’s nothing there, though. It’s a perfectly normal street. Quentin is here, so that means this is real, and he knows what he’s doing.

Peter jumps up onto the wall, goes over the balcony’s railing, and quietly climbs down. He jumps off inches from the ground, feeling nature under his boots again, grass over carpet, pavement over hardwood.

“It’s still not too late to turn back,” Quentin tells him.

Peter starts walking away from the building. Down the street. Towards street lights, in the direction of what would be a busy road were it daytime. 

“You have no idea where you’re even going,” Quentin persists, matching him stride for stride, pacing slightly ahead with longer legs doing the work. “You’re going to get lost and then it really will be too late to go back.”

Peter picks up his pace, speed walking. He’s not going to break into a run or jog - doesn’t want to be any louder than he has to be - but he’s going to go faster.

“You can’t use maps here. No GPS. You’re going to get lost and the sun will come up and you’ll be found.”

_I’m just some kid,_ Peter thinks back, cognizant that speaking will create noise that could draw a response from unwanted parties, and that he can carry on a conversation with Quentin just as effectively this way, anyway. _And I’ll find a metro station, and then I’ll know where I’m going. And I have…_ he shakes his sleeve loose, looks at his watch, _three hours. It won’t take me that long._

It doesn’t. Peter keeps walking, the changing scenery providing more and more reassurance. It’s absolutely nothing like his dream: it’s the real world. He’s out in the open air, breathing in a city that’s not his own. No broken glass. No smoke. No tricks. Deserted streets, yes, but the buildings don’t repeat and Quentin says nothing, doesn’t bring up Uncle Ben or Aunt May once.

He keeps going, passing residential areas, progressing towards open streets and moving down them. On one, he finds a metro station entrance and descends, forcing the bars open just enough to let him slip through, hoodie sleeves over his hands. He turns around and does his best to make it look like a teenager with super strength never did anything to them to begin with. And then he descends further, into the tunnels.

No trains, just a map. He has two possible routes to get to Union. He picks one and, plunging himself into total darkness, runs.

Peter nearly trips over his own feet at first, surprising himself with how suddenly free he feels, trapped underground, walls closing in on him, breathing in stale and musty air that wasn’t ever meant for humans. But there’s nobody else here and plenty of distance for him to go all out, and it’s been two weeks since he’s had that.

He’d love to be able to swing but it would be a waste of webs, and he’d probably just crash right back into the ground, anyway. But still, he’s fast and not liable to run out of breath - not anymore - and he lets that unbridled whoop of joy release itself from his throat, picking up his pace, feet pounding the ground to match his heartbeat and it’s not swinging through New York City but _he’d missed this_.

Peter lost Quentin at some point, he realizes, but he finds him again when he reaches Union. The lights are on but the shops are closed and the population sparse as he makes his way to the waiting area for buses. He stops short of actually entering it, hiding himself behind a corner in the shadows, pressed up against the wall and taking deep, steadying breaths.

Back under control. Back under control for… he doesn’t know how long.

“You still don’t know what you’re doing, do you?” Quentin asks him. Arms crossed, he looks like a reproachful friend. It could be Ned giving him this look. Well, an adult friend. It could be—

Peter runs his hands through his hair, mussing it up, dragging his fingers back forwards to bring as much down and towards his eyes as possible. He pulls his hood up and it falls halfway over them. _Nobody’s going to know who I am._

“And if someone recognizes you?”

_Then I’ll get out of here and hightail it back to Rhodey’s,_ Peter answers, _but that’s not going to happen._

He exhales through his nose sharply, punctuating his sentence, and then steps out from the corner, into the light, posture sullen and slouched and basically a ghost. Nobody looks up at him because the few here are tired, everyone ready for travel at some ungodly hour. 

Peter peruses each of the terminals, looking like he’s going about his business aimlessly, spots the bus to Pittsburgh - set to leave in ninety minutes, he’s got this he’s got this - and keeps walking the length of the station, looping back around to it.

There is nobody at the terminal. Peter goes to the back corner and quietly hops the railing, then slides on through, partially sticking to the walls as he hugs them.

It dimly registers with him that he should be freaking out right now. That he’s freaked out in situations like this before. He’s done them, but there’s always been some franticness to them, some undercurrent of panic. This is… nothing. His heart is steady.

_Maybe it’s because I’m the only one in danger,_ Peter thinks. Then, _If I even am… what are the chances somebody here could hurt me?_

It’s a new thought, but he has to stop for a moment and stare down at his hands, turning them over, palms upwards. Web shooters are just peeking out from under his sleeves. He could punch a hole through the wall right now if he wanted. There’s a… there’s a certain element he thinks he hadn’t considered before. That maybe he really can handle himself.

“Your problem with Mysterio was that you couldn’t punch him,” Quentin says. Peter looks up, levels his gaze. “You never landed a single blow. He made it so that was never an option for you.”

_Not now,_ Peter thinks, turning back to advance down the pathway. _When I’m on the bus._

It’s sitting there, waiting. Not a soul nearby because it’s only just barely four in the morning and it’s not time yet. But still, the quicker the better.

Peter darts over to it and places an experimental, sleeve-covered hand on the bus’ front passenger door. He lowers it, giving a trying tug on the proper opening; nothing, but that’s no surprise. He moves one hand over to the crack just between the door and the rest of the bus. The other hand joins it, finger tips splaying out and seeking a grip. And then he pulls.

His face splits into a grin as the door moves, and Peter scrambles inside, doing his best to close it again. He has no idea how much he just broke - if things will even work properly now - but from his vantage point, things look intact. He moves to the back of the bus’ lower level, dropping down between the seats in the second to last row.

“That was easy,” he laughs under his breath, giving himself a moment to use his voice again. He curls his knees up to him and exhales.

“Too easy?” Quentin questions, joining him to sit on the floor between the rows of seats.

_No,_ Peter replies. In truth, he’s still a little out of breath from all the running and the adrenaline rush of having pulled off this first leg. _But it’s gonna get harder. Soon._

It really is: he’ll have to disembark the bus and transfer in broad daylight in a completely new environment. In DC he’d at least be able to find his way back to Rhodey’s - or, in the likely event he got lost, Rhodey or Sam would probably spot him and come to his defence. In Pittsburgh he’ll have no allies, no hideout, and even if he succeeds he’ll still have to go undetected on a bus for the better part of two days.

“This is really your last chance to come to your senses now,” Quentin says. He’s right: Peter looked up the times in his preparation. Trains will be starting again soon. His underground pathway won’t be accessible anymore. The sun will be rising. And he’ll still be a wanted fugitive, alone and exposed right where the government and military are based.

Peter takes a deep breath, not to calm himself down but just to get a taste of air. It’s bus air, though, not fresh or subway air. But it’s different air, and he’ll take it for that alone. _That’s fine. I know what I’m doing. Do you think I’ve got any time to get some sleep?_

“Well, let’s see,” Quentin says, “you’ll have people boarding within the hour, and you need to stay away from them and pray nobody comes to sit where you are. Then you’ve got a six hour ride, and you have to be awake when it’s over, or else you’ll end up further north than you intended with no idea of how to get back on course. Or you could just flee up to Canada, which would probably be smarter than trying to go all the way to the west coast, and equally as unproductive.”

_Whatever,_ Peter snorts. _Point taken. No slip ups now. I can sleep on the second bus._ That one he can, no problem: it’ll carry him right to Los Angeles, and from there, he can figure out how he’s getting to Hollywood or Malibu or wherever it is he ends up. His instincts will tell him where he’s going.

“Trusting yourself is a big move,” Quentin says, “especially when you consider how fucked up your brain has been lately. You couldn’t discern what was real, you tried to shoot someone who was helping you in the head, you took people’s trust and manipulated them by omitting information, and oh yeah, you’re still hallucinating. And you think you can get yourself across the country unscathed?”

Peter sighs. He slides his bag off, hugging it to his chest like it’s a lifeline. Maybe the only one he has left anymore. _I’ve gotta start trusting myself again at some point._

“Yeah, through small steps. This is huge and you’re just a kid.”

_I’m not like any other kid. Even the rest of the Avengers would say that._

“You think they still don’t see you as one? You’re still someone they have to look after. You proved that when you handed over the glasses to someone you’d known for, what, three days?”

_Fuck you,_ Peter grumbles. He’s starting to get a headache arguing with himself. He rubs at his temples with one hand, other arm still clutching his bag to his chest, still sitting on the bus’ floor behind tall, obstructive seats. _So I won’t be the Avengers’ problem anymore. Mr. Stark is the only reason I ever was and he’s gone now, so…_

Peter turns away at that, choosing to stare at the blank wall of the bus instead. He pulls his hood back up and folds his arms back over the bag, turning himself into a scrunched up ball, neglected in the back corner. He stares at nothing until he hears the sounds of machinery coming to life: the bus rumbling, people’s footsteps filing aboard, a small hum of chatter filling the air he can only pick up because his hearing is particularly good, now. 

And then there’s a jolt, and the bus moves.

Peter looks all around him, but can’t really see anything from his vantage point on the floor - though that also means that nobody is sitting by him. He shifts to a crouch, tightly gripping one of the bag’s draw strings as he slowly moves to sit up. He peaks over the edge of the seat in front of him and yup - they’re moving. The sky is still dark and there are some people sitting ahead of him and they’re on the move.

Peter moves to actually sit up on the seat instead of the floor. Six hours, and it’ll be far more comfortable this way. He looks to the right, finding Quentin already comfortable in the seat beside him.

When they’re out on the open road - when there’s truly no turning back - Quentin speaks up. “I thought you were done with father figures.”

_I am,_ Peter replies.

“Your actual dad is dead. Your uncle is dead. Tony Stark is dead…”

_Mr. Beck isn’t dead._

“He could be. And even if he isn’t: that’s your choice? Really? What about Rhodey?”

_That’s not fair to him,_ Peter thinks. _He isn’t… He doesn’t… He was working. Mr. Stark, he did what he wanted, I think. Rhodey is… official. He doesn’t have the flexibility. And me staying with him was never supposed to be long term._

“He’s probably up right now. Or he will be soon,” Quentin says. “What do you think he’ll do, when he sees you aren’t there?”

Guilt stabs at Peter. He pulls his legs up as he turns to the side, leaning against the wall. His stomach hurts; he feels awful. _I don’t want to think about that. I just… had to do this. I don’t want to think about him anymore._

“He’s probably worried.”

Peter squeezes his eyes shut. _So was everyone else. It’ll work out in the end._

“Why do you think that?”

Peter can’t think of an answer.

“Isn’t this part of what Sam said to you? If you can’t come up with a justification, you might be in the wrong?”

_Maybe there’s no right, especially if a hallucination is trying to tell me this._ Peter stops for a second. He uncurls himself and tilts his head back, thinking. _It’s bad in the short term but it was always going to be. The dreams told me that, you led me to that conclusion, Sam confirmed it. My friends were always going to get hurt. But when I get to Mr. Beck… I can fix that. Maybe not for everyone else. Maybe it’ll always hurt for them. But it’ll go away, right? Like when my parents and Uncle Ben died. I learned to live with it. Maybe it’ll be the same thing. And then I’ll be with…_

“Someone who tried to kill you.”

_Yeah, but not at first. And now there’s no reason for him to._

“Revenge?”

_I can confront him and stop living with everything he put in my head and we can go back to what it was like before. Even if he doesn’t have powers. We can still go back to what it was like before. I barely had that with Mr. Stark, I could never have that with Rhodey, but with Mr. Beck… It could work. I’ll have that._

* * *

He rides in silence most of the way, his brain mostly clear of static. He feels unsettled - nervous - but the sense of finality each passing mile gives him is just as reassuring as it is concerning. He should have butterflies in his stomach, of course. He does. But he can’t help but keep thinking that this truly was the right move, even if only selfishly for his own sake.

_I should get to be selfish, right?_

No answer.

When they reach Pittsburgh Peter figures it’s best to just act like he knows what he’s doing. Walk around with a sense of confidence literally anyone not on the run would have. So he gets up along with everyone else, bag slung over his shoulders, head down, hood up, and shuffles off the bus just like the rest of the crowd.

He’s in a whole new terminal.

Nobody says a word to him. Nobody spares him so much as a glance. He’s nobody.

He turns on his phone. VPN. Saved screenshots. He’s got two hours.

Peter takes a quick look around the station and finds the spot he’ll have to go to next for boarding. It’ll be early afternoon; it won’t be deserted like in DC, when he could just slide on through well ahead of time. He chews on his lower lip, then heads to the bathroom, picking a far stall and sitting on the toilet, door locked, legs propped up.

It’s as good a spot as any to kill time unseen. He still has to figure out how to get on the next bus, but—

Peter’s stomach growls and he looks down at it incredulously. It’s then it hits him how heavy his eyes feel: his body had just been living in comfort for the past two weeks, for far longer than that (it was just his mind that wasn’t) and now it’s not happy with him. _We were healthy before,_ it says to him, _why did you deviate?_

He doesn’t have any money on him. He can’t draw any attention to himself. It’s still going to be another two days without food, probably.

His stomach growls again and he wills it to shut up.

Eventually, Peter gets back up, goes to wash his hands, leave the bathroom. He steals a drink of water from the fountain, swears internally as he realizes, now far too late, that maybe he should have brought a bottle, he could have filled up— oh well. 

The bus, final destination to Los Angeles, is boarding in half an hour. Everything is on time. Peter leans back against the wall beside the fountain and stares upwards. His eyes catch a ventilation shaft.

… Shit, maybe that’s it.

He turns around, goes back into the bathroom. It’s still empty. There’s a vent. He’s nimble enough. He can fit through. He can— this is stupid.

Taking one last quick look around, he shoots out a web, pulls the shaft off. Carries it back up with him and tries to fasten it back on from the inside. He’ll have to go around - he’s facing the opposite direction from where he needs to go - he could get lost and miss it and it could all be for nothing and he has to hurry, this is so stupid—

_Stop thinking,_ he tells himself, and he does.

It’s tight, and it’s hard to go quickly, and it’s not even remotely a pleasant experience. He feels dust bunnies clinging to him and he has to stop and suppress a sneeze more than once. Everything in here is hell on his senses. But he has to keep going, he has to…

There.

Peter looks out of the vent, bits of light shining through, providing some illumination. There are people around, of course, but they look far away. Nobody is in this vent’s vicinity. If he’s quiet, he should be able to get down to the ground and… then what?

He gnaws on his lower lip. Looks at his watch. Ten minutes. Ten minutes to come up with something and execute it.

Peter looks out across the terminal, finds the bus that says it’s going to L.A. Stares up at that beacon, high up, looks just a little bit higher and…

Looks down again at the ground, at the people milling about it. Nobody looks back up at him, because of course not. Why would anyone be looking up?

Gotta be quiet.

Peter nudges the vent covering loose. He holds onto it, sliding out himself, hugging the wall right near where its perpendicularity meets the roof. Tries to put the vent covering back on, uses webs to secure its corners.

Everything in here is grey. He’s so thankful suddenly he’s wearing almost entirely grey and black.

Peter climbs up onto the roof. Nobody looks up. He crawls across the roof. Nobody looks up. His heart is still that eerie dead calm. Nobody looks up, nobody looks up, nobody looks up.

Drops down on the roof of the L.A. bus, landing with a soft thud. Presses his body as flat as he can to it and waits a minute.

Nobody looks up.

Peter makes his way over to the roof’s emergency hatch. He slides his fingertips underneath it and gives it a little tug. It squeals slightly as it opens - almost certainly rarely, if ever, used - and he slides his body in, letting the hatch fall back into place above him. He immediately drops to the floor and, hearing nothing, starts to crawl over to the stairs - to go back on the bus’ lower level, in the back where there aren’t windows, where nobody will want to sit (judging by the last time) and he can maybe, just maybe, get by for two days.

He’s in the furthest seat back, hugging the corner, right when the first paying passengers start to board.

Head dipping low, chin nearly tucked into his chest, hood so large it descends over most of his face, curled away and tucked into the corner, Peter falls asleep.

* * *

Dim, almost non-existent lights greet Peter’s eyes as they blink open. He lifts his head slightly, looking around, and suddenly remembers where he is.

Well. Kind of where he is. Because he’s on a bus, and it’s moving, but it’s also nighttime and all he can see out of the window far up ahead is open road in the middle of nowhere.

_Wow,_ he thinks to himself as the reality of the situation settles on him. _There really is no turning back now._

He lets his consciousness fade again and drifts back off.

* * *

The next time Peter wakes up he catches a glimpse of dawn through the windows. He looks at his watch for the date, then scrambles for a saved screenshot. It provides confirmation: he may not know where in the States he is now, but he should be in southern California by the end of the day.

Peter slumps back in his seat. The bus is quiet; there are other people on it - whether they’re the same people from when he first got on, he really, really couldn’t say - but everyone seems asleep or at least on the edges of it, for the most part. Now, though, there’s enough adrenaline starting to rev its way through Peter’s system that he’s not sure if he’ll fall back asleep again.

Maybe it’s not the best idea, since he’ll need to disembark relatively soon - he can’t have made it this far just to get caught. But maybe he also doesn’t need to, since he seems to have conked out for the better part of the journey. It was maybe the best thing that could have happened for him.

His stomach growls at him and he sighs, hugging his bag to it like that’ll stop the hunger pangs. He lets it go, sitting up straighter as the sudden, overwhelming need for water hits him.

Maybe that can trick his body into thinking it doesn’t need to eat, he figures. At least for a little while. Hopefully until the end of the day. Hopefully beyond that.

Peter quietly gets up and moves to the bus’ bathroom right beside him. He cups his hands under the sink and drinks from that, killing off who knows how many minutes until he feels better. When he exists, Quentin is back, sitting in the seat next to his, looking up at him.

Peter nods at him as he brushes by him - his outstretched legs aren’t really there but still, it would be rude, right? - and back to his own spot in the corner, picking his bag back up from where he’d left it and wrapping a strap around his arm. _Almost there,_ he thinks.

“Do you wonder if you’ve used up all your luck getting there?” Quentin asks.

Peter blinks at him. _Luck?_

“Maybe there’s a finite amount for everyone. Maybe you were lucky to make it as far as you did. Maybe, once you’re there, it’ll all be downhill.”

_I think, after everything that’s happened to me, I deserve more good luck than just this._

Quentin settles back in his seat. “Yeah, maybe,” he says, looking wistful.

Peter looks up at him, curious. It’s like there’s something Quentin knows that he doesn’t, which makes no sense - this is just an extension of his consciousness. Something to try to help him make sense of things, while also acting as an artefact of previous psychological torture. It’s… He has to go, that’s the entire point of this, Peter has to be free from him, but this is maybe the most natural moment he’s felt since everything went to hell in the first place.

If he can… If Mr. Beck can be anything like this, then Peter knows he’ll have made the right choice.

_What do you think he’s like?_ Peter asks. Quentin looks down at him, back to attention. He’s still dressed mostly in white. In the night it could have been blinding; in the dawn’s light it’s soft, comforting. Peter hasn’t felt this much like a kid in a while, he realizes. Not since the first time he met Mr. Beck. The real one. The one who treated him like—

“The guy who tried to kill you and then exposed your identity to the world? Who knows,” Quentin says.

Peter rolls his eyes and punches him lightly in the shoulder. _I know it’s stupid that I’m doing this, but I’ve gotta,_ he thinks. And grins up at Quentin, too. The tone has shifted: as they make their way ever closer to California he’s less chastising himself, more seeing the humour in it all. It’s easier to be good natured if you think there’s actually something on the horizon.

Quentin smiles back at him. “Probably nothing like you’re imagining me right now.”

_Yeah,_ Peter thinks, and his grin fades slightly. _But maybe we can get there. I think we can, at least. I know it all started as an act but… he seemed sorry, sometimes. Before he knew I knew. Maybe that part was real._

“Could’ve been,” Quentin agrees. “Guess you’ll find out.”

The sun is up, well over the horizon. Peter settles into a comfortable silence with his own thoughts. He knows he’s leaning on nothing, but he still tilts his body towards Quentin instead of the bus’ edge. He can just stare forward, people watch from under his hood, and soon enough he’ll be in Los Angeles - he’s never been! That’s a thrill of its own - and will have to figure out what to do next.

He muses on that. He’ll probably do something generic or touristy first, like try to find the Hollywood letters, like that could lead him somewhere. Or hell, maybe he’ll make his way out to the coast. See the Pacific for the first time. Maybe go out to Malibu from there; he’s got some screenshots - albeit unspecific ones - detailing at least some sort of way to Mr. Stark’s former home. Where he first developed Iron Man, Peter remembers.

He’ll figure it out.

Peter doesn’t quite drift off, but he doesn’t remain fully conscious, either, staying in a lucid but still dream-like state. Time flows over him, like the air flows over the roof of the bus as it passes through, displacing it. The sun reaches its highest point in the sky and starts to drop, and he’s in California, and the traffic is a nightmare, and Peter starts to really wake back up.

He sits up, alert, and adjusts his hood. He slings his bag back over his shoulders. It’s dark. City lights - and there are a lot of them - light the way. Peter disembarks, stepping off into a whole new world, one in which he remains unseen. He slides around the corner of the building and stops, leaning back against the wall, tilting his head back and closing his eyes as he inhales deeply.

He cracks his eyes open just before he exhales, opening them further as he moves his head back forwards. _Alright,_ he thinks, something in the back of his head giving him an inkling of a direction to pursue. His phone is off and he isn’t inclined to turn it back on again, so he figures he’ll just go with wherever it is his feet want to take him. He can figure it out from there - he’s got all of the time in the world and it’s not like doing that will make him any more likely to get caught, if he gets caught at all. _Shall we?_

Peter looks around and realizes he’s completely alone.

He waits a minute, then takes a step forward.


	9. Peter & Beck

After days of sitting on buses - after weeks of lounging in an apartment - the ocean waves lightly lapping at his feet feel amazing.

Nobody really paying attention, Peter had been able to board a late night bus. No idea where it would take him - and definitely not wanting to turn his phone back on - he’d just gotten on when he saw the chance, and it had ended up depositing him in Santa Monica, a short walk from the beach. So he’d gone, avoiding the pier in favour of deserted coastline, eventually committing to taking his boots off and walking, barefoot, where the Pacific meets shore.

He strolls north at a casual pace, wondering how to go about things now. It’s past midnight, so Tuesday - he would be having another therapy session with Sam later today if he’d stayed. The start of a new normal, once a week, for - maybe not the rest of his life, but the foreseeable future, maybe? - except that’s gone now.

His phone sits in his mask in his bag, one hand loosely holding the drawstrings looped over his shoulder, the other holding his boots. He really, really doesn’t want to turn it back on. Is terrified of what could be waiting for him.

_You could throw it into the ocean,_ an intrusive thought slips into his head, and he jerks it sideways to look out at the endless expanse of water. The moon reflecting off of it. He looks up, then back down, and shakes his head. Just an errant thought, nothing he’s actually going to _do_.

It’s so… quiet. But in a good way. Not in what he’s coming to think of in hindsight as a suffocating way, back when he’d been holed up. He doesn’t blame anyone for those circumstances - they’d been for his own safety, something a part of him acknowledges he mayvery well be forfeiting now - but walking out, alone, along the shore, he feels rested and at peace.

Not that it’s the best spot for him. Nowhere to swing from, for one thing. Webs aren’t going to do much good out here at all; he remembers a fiery crash and borderline helplessness the last time he was in a crisis situation on an American beach. But nothing’s going to happen _here_. So it doesn’t really matter.

Peter looks to the northwest, somewhere around the horn where Mr. Stark used to live, and wonders how he’ll get there.

Hollywood is pretty much out of the question in his mind, now: what would he even do there? Where would he go? Hit up production companies about a guy who probably hadn’t been there in at least a decade? Actually, actively engage with people when he’s probably a wanted man? ( _Not a man, technically._ ) Not to mention the sheer logistics of just getting around a place like Los Angeles, its streets, its population…

It’s starting to feel kind of stupid, Peter thinks. He remembers a justification to Quentin: at the very least he could go to where Mr. Stark had lived before New York. Where he made Iron Man. Even if it’s not a house anymore, even if there’s nothing there…

And then what?

Well, he can decide on that when he gets there, at least.

Peter ponders his options as he slowly moves forward, breeze coming to cool him off a bit more. He hasn’t actually had the chance to change his clothes in days and it’s starting to get gross but whatever. He could… walk along the highway. Hitch a ride on top of a bus this time, maybe. It’s dark out, is it the best time to move? Maybe he could find some place to sleep for the night? … Outside, still directly within range of cities? Is he even tired?

Coming up with an answer to that last question is hard. Which should maybe be a sign that he is tired, should stop. Travel fatigue, or something. It’s been an entire continent and three timezones. 

Peter keeps walking. At some point he’ll move away from the coastline, go to dry off his feet, get the sand off of them, put his boots back on, get serious. But for now he gets to just take in ocean air and have his brain on autopilot, and that’s good.

* * *

It’s late. It’s dark. Until it’s not.

Not thinking much of it, Peter had kept walking. The traffic was minimal, if it existed at all. Highway 1 is not meant for foot traffic, but he’s still not the typical person. It isn’t like— Mr. Stark, he was special, but in a totally different way. And if he didn’t have his armour, he was still special, but not like—

Peter has his own unique level of stamina, of strength, of being able to cross paths people really shouldn’t, and he’d just kept going, bypassing residential areas along the coast and looking up into the ranges as the sun rises over them.

And suddenly, exhaustion hits him.

_I should stop,_ he thinks to himself. _Even if everything’s going to work out in the end. I should stop. I don’t want to be tired. Not when… I’m so close, I need to not be tired._ ** _You know what happens when you get tired._**

Fear shoots through him, suddenly, like it’s making up for lost time. Days of ignoring potential consequences of his decision tumble down on him, all focused on one needlepoint threatening to pierce his core: if he can’t rely on himself he is _fucked_.

No sleep leads to hallucinations. The present lack of hallucination, ever since he stepped off a bus that came from Pittsburgh, has been unsettling. The entire point was to get rid of him and now he’s gone and Peter feels naked and has to wonder if he’s even really here, because the entire night has been ethereal and what if he’s slipping again what if he’s slipping again _what if he’s already gone—_

He leaves the highway for the hills. Realizes, belatedly, that he’d probably make a really good rock climber now. They aren’t New York City’s buildings but they aren’t a bad alternative, either. He’s well clear of the road by the time the sun is truly up, before he can really start to hear cars, and heart in his throat, he finds a shady, sheltered spot, rocky and probably untouched by human hands until now, and he nestles himself in.

A faint whirring sound wakes him up.

Peter cracks his eyes open, then brings a hand up to shield them from the sun. It’s not at its highest point in the sky, so it’s a bit later in the afternoon, he surmises; not quite a healthy eight or nine hours of sleep but probably pretty close, and he’d feel good were it not for the literal rocks he’d been sleeping against, crick in his neck already extremely pronounced.

There’s a drone right in front of him, watching him.

Peter’s eyes open all the way and he stays stock still, waiting to see what’s going to happen. If it’s armed. Will try to shoot him. But there’s nothing telling him there’s any danger, so he just stares back.

It’s after he finally shifts position to sit properly upright that the drone actually does anything. It turns away from him, moving to go down the range, towards the highway.

Peter hesitates for a second, then pulls his hood back up and follows it.

It takes him to the outskirts of what Peter quickly realizes is Malibu. He’d walked - speed walked, most likely, and for him that means something - and covered a fair bit of ground before he’d given up. And now that he’s here, he realizes he doesn’t know where, exactly, the remains of what would have been Mr. Stark’s home actually _are_.

Realizes that’s actually not important anymore.

The drone goes to one house right at the city’s edge. It’s relatively isolated from its neighbours, but not in a particularly obvious way - just a little further out, maybe a few more tall trees. Peter hops the fence, notes a pool in the backyard, sees the drone going inside.

_Okay,_ Peter thinks. He drops his bag on the lawn and stands, facing the backyard’s sliding glass doors, to attention. Not necessarily ready to fight, but… ready. 

He doesn’t know how he actually feels, his breathing evenly measured but his heart still in his throat. It’s not a moment of truth or reckoning or anything. It’s just a moment. Maybe a key one, like when Nick Fury had first collected him in Venice. A healthy amount of apprehension and nothing more.

Someone moves into view from inside. Peter pushes his hood back. He steps out, a slight limp.

“What are you doing here?” Quentin— Mr. Beck— Beck asks. His voice is flat but still tinged with curiosity. There’s an underlying hint of threat Peter recognizes, but mostly, it’s just a question.

“Are you real?” Peter asks before he even realizes he’s saying anything.

Quentin— Beck— He pauses, cocking his head at Peter. “What?”

Peter swallows, doing everything he can to keep himself under control, to stop himself from spiralling off to the worst case scenario immediately. “Are you real,” he says again. “Like, it’s you. It’s really you. A real person.”

Peter doesn’t know what to call him. It’s becoming clear this isn’t his Quentin; this isn’t his constant companion of the past several days. Quentin knew everything he was thinking because he was inside Peter’s brain. This Quentin— Mr. Beck— he doesn’t. He doesn’t know what Peter’s getting at. Maybe. He doesn’t know what Peter’s been through since they last crossed paths. Definitely.

Because only Peter knows. Because he kept it quiet.

It’s going to come out, now, maybe.

Beck stares at him, and Peter remembers that gaze. He remembers what it was like to have it so firmly fixed on him, as he was advanced on, stalked, prey. There’s a lot going on behind it, Peter knows that much now - you don’t get that far without serious calculating - but suddenly, it breaks.

Beck doesn’t look away, but Peter can see the shift in demeanour. Less hard. More contemplative.

And his voice, when he speaks again, is soft. _What he first heard._

“Yeah,” Beck says. “It’s me. I’m real. I’m a real person.”

“But you died,” is the next thing out of Peter’s mouth. “How can it really be you if you’re dead?”

Beck shrugs, and now it’s fully informal. “I’ve been told I’m pretty good with illusions,” he says, a lilt to his voice. “You just relied on your eyes, right? And EDITH. Around me…”

“… That’s not reliable,” Peter says. More like whispers to himself, but even though there’s still distance between him and Beck, he’s audible enough. His eyes dart to Beck’s side, and he remembers what had looked like a limp. “But you still got shot?”

Beck’s hand brushes his side. As it does, he grimaces slightly. “Yeah. But hardly anything fatal. Why?”

“I don’t… I don’t know,” Peter says, flabbergasted. He hadn’t known what to expect at all, but it probably wasn’t this. “It sucks when people get hurt. I don’t want anyone to get hurt.”

“Even me,” Beck says, staring at him, incredulity creeping into his tone.

“Even you,” Peter affirms, and he fully means it.

“So what are you doing here?” Beck asks again.

Peter opens his mouth.

Realizes there’s no way for him to explain any of this without sounding like he’s completely lost it.

The goal in coming here was to get it back. Get his mind back under control. Fix himself. And he can’t even explain—

But his instincts had led him here. They hadn’t faltered once. He’d had a smooth cross-country journey, as smooth as those can go, especially considering he’s probably a nationwide fugitive. His initial inclination to go to Malibu had been correct. He’d foregone the possibility of Mr. Stark’s house pretty quickly, too. He brought himself right here. And he’d had a reason for doing it, too.

_Start there._

Peter tries again. “I need your help.”

“My help,” Beck repeats, skeptical.

There’s no way to do this right. There’s no way. “Yeah,” Peter says. “I came to— a realization, I guess. After— After everything _you did_ ,” and oh he can still grit that out, he still knows where some of the fault lies, “I don’t think I— I don’t— I can’t— I’m not really any good, to anyone else, anymore. My friends, my family, everyone who cares about me - they’ll say they want to help me. They probably do. But I’m a liability now. I’m not trustworthy and I have superpowers. I’ll just scare them, I’ll put them in danger, it’s just not fair but _you_ …”

He trails off but Beck doesn’t respond, just continues to stand there, contemplating. He’s listening to every word Peter is saying, though, he realizes. Really listening. There’s no expression on his face, nothing trying to encourage Peter or mock him or gloat or anything. It’s so like _before_ it hurts, squeezing at his heart, and Peter takes a cautious step forward.

“You know what you did to me,” Peter says. “Maybe you’ve done it to other people. I don’t know. I hope not. But you know, and nobody else does. So I need your help.”

Beck looks at him thoughtfully. “You’re really not okay,” he says.

Peter shakes his head.

Beck takes another minute, evaluating the situation. Peter lets him. He’s done all of the talking here, he realizes - he’s the one who’s handed over most of his cards - and he’d done it without a second thought. Something had been blocking his throat every time he’d talked to Sam. To Rhodey. To Ned and MJ and Aunt May. But here it was _easy_.

That has to mean he’s doing the right thing, right?

“Okay,” Beck says, and Peter looks up sharply. Beck doesn’t even flinch at it, and Peter realizes it’s happening. It’s happening. It’s finally happening. “Come here.”

His feet obey. The backyard is big - the house is big - but it’s not that big of a distance to cross. He walks up to meet Quentin, and then, without a second thought, covers the final few steps that much quicker, throwing his arms out and meeting him with a hug, burying his face in his chest.

Quentin inhales sharply and Peter immediately relaxes, though he doesn’t let go. “Sorry,” he mumbles into Quentin’s chest at first, then looks up, surprised to find his vision blurred, the tears starting to come again, “I forgot. You got shot.”

“Ah,” Quentin says. He reaches out with his own arms and Peter feels them snake around his back, clasping together, and he lets himself relax again, tilt his head back down and look to the side rather than Quentin’s face, just feeling… warm. Right. Like things are going to get better. Like he has something to look forward to again.

“Don’t worry about it. You need someone in your corner? I can help.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello! Couple of things!
> 
> So I had two thoughts when I decided to expand this beyond Alucinari, the first being: How do I make things worse?
> 
> The second was that if I was going to go beyond that first fic, I was going to make it a series. And if this was going to be a series, I had to justify it. So this isn't the end-end - there'll be a Part 3 coming. I'm not sure when I'll be able to post the first chapter of that but bear with me. Part 3's the part I really wanted to write, and now that I can properly turn my attention to it... woooo.
> 
> Also also! Thank you so much for the comments along the way, I've read and cherished each and all of them, I just haven't responded because of some weird neurosis on my part. It makes no sense, I know. But they're appreciated!
> 
> In the interim, I remain over at miikkasakari.tumblr.com, where I'll be infinitely less formal.
> 
> And once again, the very lovely an_vasy has [translated this fic into Russian](https://ficbook.net/readfic/8606436) as well!


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